Location, Location, Location
by forensicsfan
Summary: Just like real estate - it's all about location, location, location. A series of one shots of firsts between Booth and Brennan full of fluff.
1. Desk

**Disclaimer:** I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I certainly don't profit from them. However, I do so enjoy pulling them out and playing with them from time to time.

**Author's Note:** Perhaps this is just hopping onto the bandwagon of a few folks who have treated us with stellar stories of first kisses and "other" firsts between our favorite couple. This story is full of firsts too, but it's all about "Location, Location, Location". So with that said, I shall commence the first of what I hope will be many installments of this decidedly devoid of case-plot fluff filled story. Each chapter will be a stand alone. This first chapter is dedicated to Ashley in hopes that she truly will get to meet David Cook someday.

* * *

_**Desk**_

Mistletoe was for wimps and if there was one thing that FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth was _not_ it was a wimp; a bit cautious maybe – something he had found to be rather valuable as a former sniper – but certainly not a wimp. Still as he walked towards his partner's office to see if she had any new bone stuff to report on the case they were currently working on he couldn't help but glance up to where the offending bough had been placed just before Christmas and inwardly shuddered. It wasn't as if he hadn't thought about kissing Bones about eight hundred thousand times, it was that the whole idea had been sprung on him when he wasn't expecting it right in front of Caroline Julian. What the hell good was a kiss when you couldn't really even let loose and enjoy it? Not that he hadn't enjoyed the soft feel of Bones' lips pressed against his, or the way her fingers had gripped his lapels and pulled him closer giving him a clue of just how feisty she was, or even the way he'd ended up with her gum in his mouth – it was just that he felt compelled to pretend he didn't enjoy it because she had compared it to kissing her brother. That in and of itself sort of sucked the enjoyment right out of it and he'd been thinking about how in the world he could rectify the situation ever since.

"Hey, Bones," He flashed her one of his trademark grins as he strolled into her office, puffing his chest out just a little bit in an unconscious effort to bring attention to his flashy tie.

"I'm still waiting on the results," Brennan had her brow furrowed and didn't even bother to glance up as she typed away at her computer. Her publisher had been after her for a few more chapters of her latest book in progress and since there was a bit of a lull in the case she and Booth had been working on, she thought she'd spend a little time with Kathy and Andy. Problem was, she was facing every writer's worst fear – writer's block and all she'd done for the last hour is type and retype the same paragraph.

"Are you working on your new book?" Despite his best efforts over the course of her three published novels, he'd never successfully gotten a preview of any of them.

Brennan snapped her laptop shut and momentarily gave him a look that could freeze vodka just in case he had any ideas about snooping, "My publisher wants another chapter by Monday; I don't do creativity under pressure very well." Of course that hadn't stopped her from churning out one best seller after another and garnering hoards of fans that had sometimes turned out to be a little too fanatical.

Booth lips slid into a mischievous smirk and puffed his chest out again, "Well if you need any pointers on Andy's _performance_, I could give it a read through to make sure it's believable." Where he got his bravado he wasn't sure since in his experience Bones had the ability to make him want to quiver in a corner when the subject of sex came up. Maybe because he couldn't afford having thoughts of Bones and sex in the same sentence.

Brennan rolled her eyes, pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest as she regarded her partner, "I'm fairly certain that since I've managed to become a New York Times best selling author three times over that I don't need your 'input', Booth," She knew that he just wanted to sneak a peak, so she was calling his bluff.

"C'mon, Bones, he's FBI and so am I – you're going to tell me that I can't give even a teensy weensy bit of insight into a character who is so obviously patterned after me?" He could see it, the squints could see it, hell even her publisher could see it – why then didn't the genius forensic anthropologist herself see it? He stood in front of her desk looking down at her with an expression that clearly implied that he thought she was blowing smoke out of her ears.

"How many times to I have to tell you that you are real person and Andy Lister is _fiction_?" She stood up and rounded her desk to help make her point and to keep him from peaking at her laptop ending up nearly toe to toe with Booth. She wasn't going to back down though; Andy Lister was in fact a fictional character no matter how much of him did resemble Booth – if she were to step back and approached it rationally that is.

"Fiction as in _fiction_, or fiction as in kissing me is like _kissing your brother_?" Booth regretted the words the instant they came out of his mouth no matter how true he thought they were.

Brennan's jaw dropped just a hair and then it seemed that a fire caught in her eyes, "That was mistletoe. Caroline made me. You were there." She had three Ph.D.s dammit, why in the hell couldn't she string more than three words together in a sentence in response?

Booth let out a scoff, "Yes, I was there, and if I recall correctly, I ended up with _your_ gum in _my_ mouth – definitely _not_ a brotherly kiss there, Bones." He knew for a fact that she would never kiss Russ the way she'd kissed him – mistletoe or not.

Brennan felt her face flush, "Well…Caroline…she…well she made me do it. That was the only way I could get the trailer." She looked into his eyes in challenge, her heart beating a little faster as she found herself leaning back against her desk as Booth seemed to get a little closer, "You didn't seem to complain at the time." He had in fact seemed incredibly flustered about the whole experience and that was part of the reason why she'd said kissing him was like kissing Russ. She wanted to give him an out – especially because Caroline had been standing right there.

"I said I could talk to her – you insisted on kissing me instead," Booth was feeling pretty cocky because right now he was sure that Bones had let Caroline bribe her on purpose just so she could lock lips with him under false pretenses; steamboats my ass.

"_I_ insisted on kissing _you_?" Brennan looked slightly horrified at the presumption even if it might actually be true – she was simply trying to keep things status quo. She thought that this was what Booth wanted too, but at the moment she was starting to have doubts. And why the hell couldn't she keep from looking at his lips?

"Yes, _you_ did?" He wasn't going to let her deny it. She could spout squinty-speak that might make his head spin, but he knew the truth – that was something you couldn't hide in a gum swapping kiss no matter how many times you said it was like kissing your brother.

"You're the one who ended up with the gum. Logically I'd have to say that you _wanted_ to kiss me," Brennan felt her heart beating wildly and she noticed a slightly predatory look in Booth's eyes as he inched even closer.

Booth leaned in, resting his hands on the desk on either side of her, his mouth was mere inches from hers, "And if I did, would that be a problem?" He had her slightly off balance and that was perfectly fine because she'd had him off balance for quite some time now.

Brennan shook her head as she considered just how wonderful his lips seemed, "No problem at all." She wasn't really sure how her hand reached out and gripped his tie closing the last little bit of distance as their lips came crashing together and she really didn't care either.

Booth's inner cheer squad was jumping up and down, doing tumbling runs and chanting out what a great kisser he was as he leaned in even more to deepen the kiss, effectively pinning Bones against the desk. He had half a mind to just clear the whole damn thing off in a blind sweep of his arm and have his way with her right there when a shrill piercing squeal cut through the most glorious moment of his entire partnership with Bones.

As the pair unwillingly came up for air, a wide-eyed, gape-jawed Angela Montenegro stood in the doorway to Brennan's office with a look on her face that rivaled that of someone who had just won the lottery. Brennan took all of this in realizing that if Angela knew there was no reason to hide it and then looked back at Booth, grabbing his tie a second time as she pulled him forward for another kiss and mumbled against his lips, "Definitely _not_ like kissing my brother."

* * *

_**Next…A couch? An SUV? Or maybe some sand on the seashore? Tune in and find out.**_


	2. SUV

**SUV**

"I'm a man, Bones. I like meat," Booth grumbled as he glanced over at his partner. They were currently on a stakeout waiting to see if the prime suspect in the murder case they were investigating would show up where an informant had said he hung out. So far though, all they'd seen was a street sweeping vehicle and an odd assortment of homeless people. And for some reason, Bones had felt the need to launch into some squinty-speech about the health benefits of vegetarianism.

"There are many men who are vegetarians, Booth. Being male does not automatically mean that you're a meat eater," Brennan couldn't help but find fault with his logic.

"Well this man likes his meat, thank you," Booth grimaced as the double cheeseburger that he'd had earlier at the diner seemed to be taking Bones' side in his stomach. He wasn't going to begrudge the fact that she seemed to think that eating veggie was better for you, but he wasn't going to even think of giving up his steak, or burgers, or extra sausage and pepperoni on his pizza. Those were man foods and he was a man's man.

"You're equating eating meat with being a man – as if not eating it would somehow compromise your virility, when logically the opposite is probably true," Brennan offered in return; these stakeouts certainly offered plenty of opportunity to engage in lively discussions.

"Huh?" Booth looked at her as if she was smoking something, "What about my virility are you questioning? My virility is just fine thank you...I don't have performance issues, which I'm sure is because I enjoy a nice steak now and then." She could question a lot of things, but she hadn't better dare his ability to perform thank you very much. She was in no position to critique something that she hadn't even experienced – not that he didn't hope that maybe she would be in that sort of position with him sometime in the future.

"Was your burger earlier hormone free?" Brennan raised an eyebrow in question, "Animals are routinely given feed containing hormones and antibiotics – consuming that meat has effects on the human body that hasn't been fully quantified yet."

"Look, Bones, I don't interview every cow before it becomes my hamburger, ok?" Booth wished that she'd just drop this before his burger really started talking back to him, "Is this like when you tried to convince me to eat organic veggies?"

"Cows don't talk," Brennan retorted rather seriously, "And organic vegetables really are better for you. I would think that you wouldn't want to risk having your genitals shrink." They'd had a lengthy conversation about this very topic several months previously and it surprised her to a certain extent that he still hadn't gone organic.

"My genitals are just fine thank you," How she always seemed to manage to get the conversations spun around so that they were discussing sex was beyond him. He did not need to have a conversation about his privates with her, especially after she'd barged in on his bath to give him an earful about not being told that he wasn't really dead. He couldn't be certain, but he thought she had glanced down at least once, especially after he'd stood up when he'd forgotten for just a moment that he was buck naked.

"Yes, they are now, but if you continue to consume things that contain pesticides and other chemicals..." Brennan realized that she must have said something given the look on Booth's face that was a mixture of smugness and shock. "What?"

"You looked, didn't you?" He was sure of it now, as squinty as she was, she probably had a mind that processed things faster than a Ferrari and clearly she had glanced and made some sort of mental assessment about his male prowess based on what she'd seen.

"Looked at what?" Brennan wasn't a prude, but she didn't want Booth thinking that she'd taken advantage of an already awkward situation by checking out what Angela would refer to as his package. For a male, Booth was definitely above average in how he was endowed and she reasoned that if he had any technique at all that he had no problem pleasing a woman.

"My little man and his buddies," Booth wasn't going to let her get out of this one; she had stared and stored away the mental images for later use – the infamous Dr. Temperance Brennan was definitely not above indulging in the occasional fantasy – too many discussions in this very vehicle had let him know that much.

She smirked, "Is that what you call them? Anthropologically speaking, many men name them to give themselves more stature," not that he needed any further elevation in his stature – his ego was already big enough.

"Look, we are not going to have a conversation about my privates – that's why they're called _privates_," Booth gave her a warning look; if she kept up this line of conversation he might have to take drastic action to shut her up. The way her lips kept flapping open and closed taunting him, he was sure that a well placed kiss could do just that.

"Actually, the term 'privates' is a societal label because people are uncomfortable saying the words penis and testicles. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Booth – by human standards, yours are quite impressive," She wasn't sure why she had given him her personal opinion; it wasn't like she wanted to pounce on him and have personal knowledge of just how impressive they were – much that is.

Booth wasn't sure if he should thank her or be offended that she had in fact taken stock of his assets and given him an A+. He was momentarily speechless.

"I've made you uncomfortable," Brennan seemed to have a way of stating the obvious as she regarded him with a curious expression. He looked uncomfortable, but there was more to his expression than that – something that she'd never really seen on his face before.

Booth acted purely on instinct; he could sit here and continue to listen to Bones talk about his privates, or he could listen to his privates and do something about Bones – so in one move, he reached over and slid his fingers into her hair and pulled her face towards his. Her lips tasted better than he'd imagined it would the four or five thousand times he'd thought about it since they'd been sitting here on this stakeout and the fact that she seemed to respond so eagerly made him realize that he should have done this much sooner.

Brennan was a little breathless as they broke the kiss off and found themselves sprawled across the console that divided the front seat; clearly this was not the ideal way to engage in a very hot make out session during a stakeout. It registered in her mind a millisecond after Booth's lips found hers again that they were in fact on a stakeout to try and catch a murder suspect – something that would be very difficult to do if they continued making out.

The chirp of Booth's cell phone interrupted and he fumbled for it as he broke off the kiss and answered it, sounding a bit winded, "Booth." His brow furrowed as he listened to the caller on the other end and as a bit of coherent thought began to seep back into his brain he ended the call and glanced over at Bones, "They picked up our guy on the other side of the park."

"Ok, so we should go back then so you can interrogate him," Brennan concluded logically that with a suspect in custody they should get back on track and work the case, no matter how much at the moment she would rather be kissing Booth.

"He's drunk off his ass, interrogating him right now isn't going to give us much of anything, we should probably wait until morning," Booth didn't want to be so presumptuous as to suggest they head back to his place, but he raised an eyebrow at Bones hoping that she would pick up on the silent suggestion.

"Ok, then," Brennan pursed her lips together thoughtfully, "we'll want to get an early start, so we should just head back to your place...or my place is closer." She most definitely wanted to continue what they'd started and she could tell that Booth did too.

"Your place it is," Booth grinned and he resisted the urge to kiss her again to focus on the task at hand, but he did flip on the sirens and lights.

_**Next installment...you just never know where they'll end up next...**_


	3. J Edgar Hoover's Chair

**J. Edgar Hoover's Chair**

The scent of her hair was slightly spicy; it was just the way her mouth tasted after the Thai food that they'd shared very late in his office after wrapping up this case that had consumed the last two weeks. Somewhere in the midst of wrestling over the last of the Mee Krab, Booth had impulsively kissed her. That had somehow turned into her sitting across his lap in the leather chair behind his desk. Perhaps it was the slight tilt that was created by her leaning into him or the way that her skirt had sort of hiked itself up so that Booth couldn't help but let his hand drift up her thigh while the other tangled in her hair, but either way he was never going to see sitting behind his desk quite the same ever again.

Brennan was sure that this was entirely against protocol, but at the moment all she wanted to do was fuck protocol. Correct that, all she wanted to do was to fuck Booth. A bit crude perhaps, but it was accurate and to the point. He was the one that had drawn that damn line so long ago and he was the one that had gone charging right over it by kissing her. Who was she to hold back the raging river of pent up sexual frustration? She was a woman who believed in satisfying her biological urges and Booth certainly didn't seem to be complaining. And if she had to satisfy herself with simply making out with him for the time being so, then so be it. He would most likely try and redraw the damn line in the morning anyway.

Booth was sure he was dreaming except that he could hear little satisfied mewling sounds coming from Bones as they traded deep soulful kisses. He wanted nothing more than to continue this back at his place, but he was afraid that leaving here would break the spell of whatever had come over them both to be making this happen. He was only slightly aware that she was fumbling with something and as he squinted his eyes open he was treated to the sight of her full round breast and the lacy bra that he was suddenly envious of the way that it perfectly cupped her. The fact that she was beginning to shrug out of her clothes set off warning bells in his head that this was not the way he had envisioned his first time with her. He reluctantly broke off the kiss, and his voice came out a bit higher than he'd anticipated, "Bones, we can't do this here."

The words 'we can't do this' registered in her mind very quickly and she felt a sinking feeling until the word 'here' seemed to come in a little bit late. Of course this wasn't a very good place for a sexual encounter; especially a first sexual encounter. Booth was sentimental and he'd probably want this to have some sort of romantic stimuli to feel sufficiently in the mood; and then there was the whole issue of them being in his office at nearly midnight with the possibility of someone else working late walking in on them at any moment. She offered a sultry smile and pulled her blouse together, slipping the buttons into their holes, "I suppose it would be difficult to explain to Cullen why you have a naked forensic anthropologist on your lap in your office."

The mental image of a naked Bones sitting on his lap caused a slightly strangled sound to escape from his throat. If there was any doubt about what this was all about it was erased with her confession. He was not about to risk his job and their partnership by having sex with her in his office, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to kiss her again. He mumbled against her lips, "Not if I don't mind losing my job."

Brennan pushed against his chest, "You're not going to lose your job over this." The thought occurred to her that the reason this was called unprofessional behavior was because it was unprofessional. Unprofessional as in they were both professionals and this was the exact opposite of how they should be acting, especially in his office. She wasn't going to do anything that would take Booth's job away – if that meant redrawing that damn line then she would do it herself. She wasn't going to be the reason that he lost the job that he loved.

"Only if we do this here," Booth felt the need to explain before she managed to bolt from his office and sail off after Sully or hop the next plane to Timbuktu. "Only if we do this _here_, Bones," The suggestion was clearly there that he wanted to do this just as much as she did, in fact he was sure she could probably feel how much he wanted to do this if she used her deductive reasoning skills to ascertain what exactly it was that was pressing into her right thigh.

His words seemed to penetrate her skull and seep into her mind, "So it's the location that's the problem, not the naked forensic anthropologist." She felt relief, as long as they weren't doing it right here in the J. Edgar Hoover building in this chair then everything would be just fine.

"As long as the naked forensic anthropologist isn't Zach, I'm sure the only adjustment we need to make is the location," He let out a soft chuckle as he felt her lips graze his chin and begin to travel up towards his ear. His inner platoon was marching double time and chanting that he was da man.

"Ok, then maybe you should get your hand off my ass or we'll never get out of here," Brennan whispered in his ear and sounded turned on and maybe a little amused at just how far up her skirt Booth's hand had drifted since they'd started making out.

"Where exactly do you want to go?" Booth wasn't going to presume that they should head back to his house – he wanted her to be comfortable; comfortable enough to want to continue this somewhere else and not have regrets the moment they walked out of his office.

"Well, I think we should stop and get a little more Mee Krab and then maybe back to my place where we can wrestle for it," The amusement was clear in her voice, but it also revealed a bit of vulnerability that what they were in the middle of right then had just presented itself and she wasn't so sure that moving things back to her apartment would be as natural and that maybe she was a little nervous at the prospect of being with him.

"That sounds good," Booth certainly was feeling nervous about where this was all leading, but she had built up his confidence just then and he couldn't resist leaning in and kissing her again; doing nothing at all about removing his hand from her ass.

After another rather long kiss, Brennan pulled away with a smirk on her face as she looked into Booth's eyes, "Do you want to get fired? Because we're not going anywhere until you get your hand off my ass." Clearly they were both enjoying themselves, but they couldn't stay here all night unless Booth wanted to go into another line of work.

Booth reluctantly moved his hand and held it up in surrender, "Ok, I'm ready to leave."

"Maybe in a few minutes," Brennan thought that the grin on his face could only be described as sexy and she couldn't resist leaning in for another kiss. Surely another few minutes couldn't hurt.

_**Tune in for the next installment sometime soon...**_


	4. In The Kitchen With Bones

**In The Kitchen**

There hadn't been a case in a few days and for some reason, Booth felt compelled to make up a reason to stop by Bones' apartment and check up on her. Truthfully, he did have some paperwork that she needed to sign off on, but she hadn't been at the Jeffersonian and that fact alone had prompted him to go check on her. So here he was at seven on a Thursday evening knocking on her door having completely forgotten the paperwork in his SUV.

Surprise registered on Booth's when Bones wasn't the one who answered the door.

"Agent Booth," Russ Brennan opened the door wide and gestured for him to come on in as if he wasn't at all surprised that Tempe's partner had shown up unannounced; they did after all spend nearly all of their time together.

"I didn't mean to interrupt a family thing," Booth glanced around and noticed that Russ wasn't the only one there, Amy and the girls were too and just when he thought that maybe Max Keenan had skipped this little gathering, he emerged from the kitchen with a handful of silverware.

Max offered Booth a welcoming smile and spoke over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen, "Tempe, Booth is here." He glanced back at the FBI agent as he put the silverware down on the table, "I'd better go get another setting."

"That's not necessary, I'm obviously interrupting," Booth didn't want to take away from this family moment for Bones; she'd had so few of them that the fact that she had her entire family over was pretty remarkable. And he noticed she had finally bought a TV sometime in the last few days because Hailey and Emma were completely engrossed in some Disney movie that he vaguely recalled was about a rat learning to cook.

"You're not interrupting anything," Amy insisted, "Russ and I got engaged a few days ago, we're just celebrating. Stay, you're practically family." No matter how much denial Tempe and Agent Booth wanted to live in, she could tell when two people cared about each other and that caring had nothing to do with just a work partnership.

"Booth," Brennan emerged from the kitchen and offered him a pleased smile. It had been a couple of days since she'd seen him and she was glad for the surprise visit. The truth was she'd been caught in a paradox of wanting a case to work on and not wanting there to be a crime committed that her services would be required for because of the victims and their families.

"You weren't at the lab," Booth stumbled a bit with his words even as he felt a smile start to spread across his face at the sight of her.

Brennan's brow furrowed, "Do we have a case?" Even though there was food in the oven, she was ready to hand it off to Russ or Dad or Amy if it was necessary.

Booth let out a soft chuckle, "Uh, no...just some paperwork to sign, but you weren't there and it was early..." He was about to say that he was worried, but somehow he knew that she would launch into some sort of explanation about how she was very capable of taking care of herself and with an audience he sure as hell wasn't going to make that admission. Booth was about to fumble his way out of the room so that she could enjoy the time with her family.

Brennan smiled; both her and Booth seemed oblivious to the smiles being exchanged between the other occupants of the living room, "Do you want to stay? I'm making macaroni and cheese."

With those simple words, a grin spread across Booth's face and any inclination that he'd had to go home and indulge in pizza and beer went right out the proverbial window. His voice had the same quality that a small boy might have upon discovering that he'd just gotten a puppy for Christmas, "Mac and cheese, Bones. I love mac and cheese."

She _had_ remembered just how much he'd loved it and when she was considering what Hailey and Emma might be willing to eat when she was planning tonight's meal she had remembered that Booth said macaroni and cheese was Parker's favorite – a perfect meal to serve to both children and adults. She couldn't help but smile a bit wider at his enthusiasm.

Max had a knowing smile on his face as he disappeared into the kitchen, "I'll just go get another place setting."

It occurred to Booth that the entire reason that Bones had a houseful was that they were celebrating an engagement; he glanced over at Russ who seemed to have a rather knowing expression on his face despite the best FBI stare he shot back, "I think congratulations are in order. When are you two tying the knot?"

"Thank you, we haven't set the date yet," Russ answered and at the same time the thought occurred to him that he was glad he wasn't as oblivious as his sister and Booth or he might never had found the kind of happiness he'd found with Amy and the girls.

Max emerged from the kitchen and gestured over his shoulder, "Honey, I think you might want to check on what you have in the oven...I'm not very handy in the kitchen." It was a bold face lie, he could manage just fine in the kitchen, but given Booth's reaction to the news about what was being served for dinner he thought that it would be far more interesting to get the meal moving forward. Maybe one of these days Tempe would wake up and see what he and Russ had seen a long time ago – she was in love with Booth and he was in love with her.

"Thanks, dad," Brennan turned and headed back into the kitchen with the sense that someone was right on her heels. She didn't need to look back to know just who it was.

"Mac and cheese," Booth hoped that maybe he might just get a preview of the luscious dish before it was actually served and he followed as close as he dared.

Brennan rolled her eyes, but felt a swell of pride that he was so excited about a simple dish. She recalled that he'd said he wanted to be in a room alone with the plate of macaroni and cheese the first time she'd made it for him and then she realized that it was also the only time that she'd made it for him. As she opened the oven to check on it, she smirked and tossed out a comment, "You do realize that you're going to have to eat this with the rest of us; you can't be alone with it."

Booth looked at her oddly and then let out a low chuckle as he realized what she was referring to, "So what you're saying is that I need a mac and cheese chaperone."

That elicited a snicker from Brennan who pulled out the large dish of macaroni and cheese which was bubbling and had just the perfect hint of browning on top, "Yes, you do." She was sure that he was going to try and sneak a taste and so as she placed the pan on the counter and shut the oven, planning to ask him to grab some extra napkins as a diversion. What she hadn't planned on was Booth sneaking his arm around her so he could pluck a bit of macaroni out of the dish, burning his fingers in the process.

"Ouch!" Booth had been shot, beaten, tied up, and any number of other painful things as both a sniper and an FBI agent, but at the moment he seemed to squeal more like a little girl.

Brennan regarded him with a stern glare as she took grip of his hand to get a closer examination of the burn, "You're going to be fine." Of course that didn't mean that he didn't need a little first aid and she spun around with him in tow and pulled him towards the sink so she could run a little cold water over his fingers. As she held his fingers under the water, she glanced over and realized that they were standing awkwardly close and she also noticed that he had a smudge of cheese at the corner of his mouth. Without thinking she reached up and tried to brush it away only to find that he had a look in his eye that she hadn't really seen before. The words were out of her mouth before she realized it, "Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?" She had meant it to tease him, but her voice was a bit huskier than she'd intended and she was looking at his lips, not his fingers.

"Yes," Booth wasn't sure how everything had shifted in these last few moments, but he wasn't about to throw away the opportunity, especially when she didn't run away and instead he found her face drifting closer to his, her eyes fluttering shut in anticipation.

Brennan could taste a hint of the macaroni and cheese he'd managed to sneak as she pressed her lips against his, softly at first and then a bit more insistently as he eagerly returned the kiss. She was still holding Booth's hand under the faucet when they broke apart grinning like idiots. She cleared her throat and held up his hand, "Feeling better?"

"Much," Booth was sure that the water had nothing to do with it and he was about to lean in for another kiss, when he heard Russ calling out and moving towards the kitchen.

"Tempe, is it ready? We can all smell it out here and we're hungry," Russ rounded the corner into the kitchen to find Booth with his hand under the faucet and Tempe with the pan of macaroni and cheese in hand and a look on both of their faces that seemed very suspicious.

"Booth burned his hand, I was just helping him make it feel better," Brennan brushed past her brother oblivious to the perma-grin on her face.

Russ regarded Booth carefully and whispered conspiratorially as the FBI agent shut off the faucet and dried his hand, "Don't break her heart or I'm going to have to hurt you."

Booth quirked an eyebrow and wondered just how much Russ had seen, "Are you threatening a federal agent?"

Russ smirked and let out a chuckle, "No, I'm threatening my sister's boyfriend, or soon to be boyfriend, so don't even try and deny it." He clapped Booth on the back and they made their way out to where everyone else was already sitting down, pleased that Booth had only chuckled in response.

There was no nearly about it; Booth was already family.

_**Ok, so you'll just have to wait until the next installment to see where our happy couple goes next...and thanks to all of you readers and reviewers – you are greatly appreciated.**_


	5. Elevator

**Elevator**

"Primitive elevators were actually used as far back as the third century BC," Brennan commented as she considered that those much earlier versions were probably far more reliable than the one she and Booth were stuck in right now – being operated by human, animal or even water power.

"And clearly they haven't been improved upon much since then either," Booth was already having a pretty crappy day. Rebecca had called to 'remind' him that she and Parker were going out of town to visit her parents and he'd have to wait until the following weekend to see his son; an arrangement that he had no recollection of. And if that wasn't enough, Sweets had 'suggested' that he and Bones watch some sort of competition with one another to see what they could learn and apply to their own partnership. At first he was thrilled to finally have something he might actually enjoy as an assignment – immediately assuming that they would be watching a sporting event – that is until he was told that they were going to have to watch the National Spelling Bee at the Kennedy Center. The grin on Sweets face as he produced two tickets just added insult to injury.

"There have been quite a few improvements; most notably the braking mechanism that Elisha Otis invented. Without that the modern day elevator wouldn't be nearly as safe – and we would most likely have plummeted to the bottom of the elevator shaft," Brennan stated it matter-of-factly, taking a great deal of confidence in the knowledge that she had that the elevator they were in was perfectly safe.

Booth shot her a glare, "Thanks, I didn't know that," his voice with thick with sarcasm. For someone as brilliant as his partner she certainly didn't get that talking about plummeting six stories to the bottom of an elevator shaft did nothing to fill him with confidence about being stuck in here with her. There was only so much squinty-speak that he could handle before he had to distract himself with her beautiful blue eyes and her soft hair and the lovely curves of her body that he most certainly was not allowed to notice because they were just partners dammit.

"You're welcome," If she noticed the sarcasm, she didn't acknowledge it. There was nothing that they could do about being stuck in the elevator and they might as well pass the time learning something. She had remains to get back to so it wasn't as if she wanted to be here either. Booth was so hard headed sometimes that she was glad she had intelligence and interesting facts to entertain her so she could distract herself from how well structured he was or how symmetrical his facial features were or how deep brown his eyes were and how often she'd thought about toeing across his damn line just because it was there.

They lapsed into silence and Booth started to fidget. He'd already called to let whoever the hell was on the other end of that little phone in the box in the elevator that they were stuck and he wanted out or he just might go federal on their ass. Actually, he had been as pleasant as he could manage under the circumstances, but if they didn't hurry up he was going to do something to let them know that this FBI Special Agent was pissed.

Brennan just stood there patiently, leaning up against the back wall of the elevator; she wasn't sure why Booth just couldn't do the same. She studied him as he paced for a few minutes and then finally slumped down on the floor and glanced up at her. She simply smiled.

That smile of hers was going to be the death of him; what had he been thinking sitting on the floor of the elevator? She was wearing a dress and those legs of hers from this angle seemed even longer and sexier than normal. All of a sudden, Booth's tie seemed to have a stranglehold on him and he let out a strange noise.

Brennan's brows furrowed in concern, "Do you suffer from clautophobia?"

"I don't have claustrophobia, Bones," Fear of wanting to tackle his partner and kiss her senseless maybe – followed by a serious ass kicking by said partner – but definitely not fear of enclosed spaces.

"No, not _claustro_phobia, _clauto_phobia – the fear of being stuck in elevators," Brennan had enunciated quite clearly, but perhaps Booth was experiencing a rushing sound in his ears that was a classic symptom of a panic attack.

"I'm not afraid of being stuck in an elevator," He glanced up at her again and decided that this was not going to go well for him if he continued to have an ant's-eye view of her legs. He pulled himself up off of the floor and leaned against the wall. "Why do you think that I'm afraid of being stuck in an elevator?"

"You were making a funny noise," Brennan replied, noticing just how soft his lips looked when they moved. It was a good thing she could multitask and actually listen while she looked at them move.

"Humph," Booth snorted and then glanced up at the ceiling and mumbled under his breath, "at least there aren't any damn clowns in here."

"Yes, I would imagine that coulrephobia and clautophobia would be a rather unpleasant combination," Brennan smirked. The fact that Booth had an unreasonable fear of clowns was something she found rather amusing.

"What-a-what?" Booth really didn't need this right now.

"Fear of clowns is coulrephobia and it's something that you've clearly displayed, no matter how irrational it is," While clowns were a little disturbing in and of themselves she didn't see any reason why someone who made his living as an FBI agent and who was a former army sniper should harbor any fear of them.

"You know you're sounding a lot like Sweets right now," If he couldn't get her to stop her squinty-speak, then he was going to use psychology to his advantage because he knew how much she hated it.

Brennan simply raised a single eyebrow in challenge, "I'm simply stating facts. I'm not employing psychology." That smirk of his was extremely irritating no matter how sexy his mouth looked.

Booth let out a grunt that was half growl as he stepped towards Bones and stared her down, "Can we just stop talking about Sweets?" Despite the fact that he brought the shrink up in conversation he was no regretting it.

"Well, I'm looking forward to attending the National Spelling Bee," Brennan thought that it was going to be a great opportunity to see some of America's finest young minds at work. From an anthropological perspective it certainly sounded interesting and she really was looking forward to it.

Booth whined, "Bones, a spelling bee is not the kind of competition I was hoping we would get to see. The NBA playoffs are going on – Sweets could have given us an assignment to watch the finals."

"Is that baseball?" Brennan wasn't sure what Booth found so exciting about sports – while they did have some value for physical exercise and an admiration of skill, she was convinced that they were simply an anthropological metaphor for an assertion of dominance.

"Basketball," Booth knew he was fighting a loosing battle here. She hated sports and she was actually looking forward to attending a spelling bee.

"Sully played basketball," She had even gone to watch and the only thing about it she found even remotely interesting was the way Sully had flirted with her from the court.

"Can we _not_ talk about Sully?" Booth was about to reach his breaking point. Talking about Sully would only make him think about the fact that Bones had slept with him and thinking of her sleeping with anyone made him think about what she might look like naked and with that dress she had on right now his mind was already in the gutter. Somehow his gutter running thoughts had propelled him right in front of Bones with his hands on the rail of the elevator behind her. He had effectively pinned her in and his face was just inches from hers.

Brennan had no desire to talk about Sully just then, not with Booth's lips so close, but all she could manage was a slight nod before she found her mouth drifting towards Booth's as if there was a magnetic force stronger than either one of them and there was no way to stop it – not that she wanted to.

Making out with his partner in an elevator was definitely an improvement on his day and as Booth savored the feel of her lips and the slight curve of her hips where his hands had taken up residence, he reasoned that even a spelling bee could be endured if he was with her, especially if her fingers were sliding through his hair the way they were right now.

It wasn't until the elevator lurched slightly and started moving again that they pulled apart to catch their breaths and looked at each other a little bewildered at what had just happened. Booth felt a sinking feeling as he studied Bones, but any fears he had of the ramifications of kissing his partner were erased as Bones smiled and pulled him in for another long kiss – long enough to last all the way to the lobby.

_**Until the next location...**_


	6. Platform

**Platform**

Jack Hodgins couldn't resist a snicker as he watched Booth ogling Dr. Brennan's posterior region from where he'd been banished at the bottom of the steps to the platform while she was bent over an exam table to get a closer look at the latest set of remains they'd brought in. His snicker earned a look from Booth that was decidedly suspicious as if he could almost tell what he was thinking. Hodgins was undaunted and leaned over and whispered, "Dude, she's going to kick your ass if she gets wind that you're checking out hers." He raised his brows to emphasize his point.

Booth's hand instinctively came to rest on his hip next to his gun as he leveled a gaze a Hodgins and whispered rather forcefully, hoping that Bones couldn't hear him, "I was not checking out Bones' ass." Clearly it was not the truth, but he was an FBI agent and he had a gun, besides, Bones was wearing her lab coat and you couldn't even really define exactly where her ass was underneath that thing, "I should just shoot you for even suggesting the idea."

Hodgins smirked, "No one would blame you man; she's an attractive woman." His smirk faded as Booth leaned in a little closer and glared a little harder.

"You're supposed to be engaged – do you want me to tell Angela that you're checking out her best friend? Or better yet, let me just tell Bones and she'll kick _your _ass." Booth looked pretty damn smug – no one was going to check out his partner; especially not if he couldn't.

"I'm engaged, Booth, not blind," Hodgins retorted, preparing himself to run away in a serpentine fashion staying low to the ground if Booth actually pulled his weapon.

"That can be arranged," Booth gritted through his teeth as he watched Bones work. She really _did_ have a very cute ass; an ass that had been the source of abundant moments of distraction and, not that he would ever admit to anyone even under oath, maybe the occasional daily fantasy or three as well.

"Dude, Angela is convinced that the unresolved sexual tension between you and Dr. Brennan could alleviate the need to find alternative energy sources for the next couple of decades," Hodgins just kept on talking until he realized that Booth's hand had come to rest on his shoulder and was squeezing just a little too much; that coupled with the fact that the agent's other hand seemed to have found a home wrapped firmly around the grip of his gun made him realized he'd over-shared by a quantifiable margin. "Of course it's physically impossible to tap that kind of power - if it existed in the first place that is." His voice had a discernable waver, but clearly he'd said the right thing because the feeling was just barely starting to return to his shoulder and Booth was rubbing both of his hands together in some sort of anticipation.

"You got something there, Bones?" Booth had seen that super-squinty look that she reserved just for finding things that when she tried to explain it to him required the use of an interpreter. Of course that also meant that it was usually information pivotal to their case.

"Not sure," Brennan didn't even look up and she most certainly didn't want Booth infringing on her workspace and potentially contaminate her remains because he was over eager to catch bad guys. They hadn't even identified who their victim was yet, so it would be a while before they had enough to implicate a suspect.

"When _will_ you be sure?" Booth could hear the whine in his own voice and he realized as his partner lifted her gaze and shot him a look that could shrivel most men's manhood that he really ought to refrain from asking questions until she had answers. Of course he wasn't most men and so he took up pacing back and forth at the base of the platform doing his best to not stare at her ass since Hodgins seemed to be staring at him.

After about five minutes, which seemed like a small eternity to Booth, Brennan stood fully erected and gave her shoulders a stretch, "Hodgins, there are some particulates on the sacrum that I'd like you to examine, also the occipital bone and several of the distal phalanges have a substance that I need to know the source of."

"Yes, Dr. Brennan," Hodgins shot Booth a smug grin as he took the steps up to the platform. Clearly despite his pacing, Booth was still checking out Dr. B.

Booth didn't wait to be invited, he figured that if Hodgins was going up on the platform then so was he. What he hadn't counted on, however, was taking in the curve of Bones' hip with his eyes only to miss the last step with his foot. He went sprawling across the platform in all of his fallen FBI glory, cursing like a sailor.

"Booth, are you ok?" Brennan crouched down in concern at her normally very agile partner, wondering what logical reason had caused him to lose his balance. Rationally speaking, he'd gone up those very same stairs countless times – there was no reason that this particular time would lead to him falling.

"I'm fine, dammit," Booth was gruff as he started to pull himself off of the floor. His proximity to Bones was a little distracting and he was paying far more attention to how nice she smelled rather than on the fact that one of the steel exam tables was right near his head. That is until it solidly connected with his cranium causing another string of curses to tumble right out.

Hodgins couldn't help but start laughing at the absurdity of it all even after Dr. Brennan shot him a glare.

"It's not – ouch, Bones! – funny, Hodgins," Booth winced as his partner's fingers started to probe his skull as if he was her latest set of remains.

"Oh, trust me, it _is_ funny," Hodgins was undaunted as he continued working with the bones that Dr. Brennan had indicated needed his expertise.

"Booth, hold still, you might have a concussion," Brennan wondered if his equilibrium had been off all along and maybe that was what had caused him to miss that last step.

"I'm fine, someone moved the damn table," He knew that it wasn't true, but he sure as hell wasn't about to admit that he'd been ogling his partner – especially not with Hodgins standing right there.

Brennan furrowed her brow – his spatial reasoning was completely off. And as Booth attempted to sit up, she moved very close trying to see if his pupils were dilated from the blow to his head.

Booth felt his heart stop in his throat – he hadn't expected to see Bones' lips up this close and puckered into a worried frown.

"Your pupils are dilated, I think you might need medical attention – that could be an indication of intercranial swelling," She leaned in a little closer and peered into his eyes.

Hodgins muttered under his breath, "And it could be an indication of something else swelling." He was just waiting until the two of them realized just how close they actually were and exchanged a moment of weirdness. He was clearly going to have to take mental notes to share with Angela later.

Booth heard Hodgins say something and he turned his head to find out exactly what it was so he could determine whether or not he needed to be threatened with bodily harm when he felt the very distinct sensation of lips brushing past his. His eyes widened even further as he realized that he had inadvertently kissed Bones without even trying – and damn he'd missed it.

Brennan felt a ripple of something she couldn't quite identify shoot down her spine at the brief contact her lips had shared with Booth's and then a realization hit her as she felt her own eyes dilate.

The press of her lips was delicious and as Booth eagerly returned her kiss he found that he couldn't help himself as his hands drifted to the very curve of her hips that had made him trip in the first place; both of them seemingly oblivious to anything around them as the kiss seemed to deepen of its own accord.

In a moment that she would later describe as a divine appointment, Angela chose that moment to walk out of her office and out into the platform area. The site of Brennan and Booth making out on the platform with Hodgins working away on a set of remains as if this was a completely normal occurrence rendered her speechless. Her mouth gaped open and she looked at her fiancé with a shocked expression which seemed to demand an explanation from him.

Hodgins simply shrugged his shoulders and let out a laugh, "If I told you, you'd never believe me." Clearly being able to test the use of unresolved sexual tension to avert an alternative energy crisis wasn't going to be a viable alternative after all.

_**I hope you enjoyed this location…I've already got the next one in mind, so I just have to find the time to write it.**_


	7. Mr Lincoln's Steps

**Mr. Lincoln's Steps**

The sun was sitting low in the sky and the tourist crowds had dissipated a bit as Booth and Brennan sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in a companionable silence sipping cups of coffee. To say that it had been a hard day was an understatement. Zach confessing that he was not only Gormagon's apprentice but that he had committed murder as well; somehow intellectually justifying it until Brennan had shown him the flaw in his reasoning had been almost too much for her to bear; almost because at least Booth hadn't really died. She was still trying to forgive him for not telling her himself despite protocol, but the fact that he was sitting next to her very alive went a long way in getting there.

Booth seemed to be at a loss for words himself; Bones had put her head on his shoulder in the stairwell of the Jeffersonian and let her tears fall; somehow to inject words into that situation seemed completely inadequate and so after she seemed to have been satisfied, or sufficiently embarrassed at crying in front of him yet again, he suggested that they go for a walk. The diner just didn't seem to be appropriate this time – there was no satisfaction in finding that Zach was part of it all – and neither one of them was really in the mood to mull the case over anyway so somehow they had ended up here on the steps overlooking the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument.

Somehow the coffee reminded Brennan of a conversation in Sweet's office that she'd had with Booth and her brow furrowed at the memory. Coffee; she'd said that their relationship was coffee. Facing what his death felt like made her realize that no amount of coffee could explain or symbolize or be what they had between them. They were so much more than coffee. She glanced over at Booth, taking note of the way the fading light seemed to bring an extra warmth to his features, "We're not coffee."

Booth seemed confused at first and then it hit him what exactly she was talking about and he felt a smile pull at the corners of his mouth for the first time since she'd told him that she was sure that Zach was involved, "No, we're not are we." Not that either one of them was really sure what they were, but coffee wasn't it.

"But pie isn't quite right either; because I don't like pie and I wouldn't want our relationship described with something I didn't enjoy – because most of the time, I enjoy it you know – our relationship, not pie," Brennan wasn't given to sentiment, but nearly losing Booth had caused her to feel things she didn't want to ever feel again and with a bit of introspection she'd realized that he meant far more to her than she'd ever admitted.

Booth shook his head in agreement, "No, we're not pie either." Pie was something that you had with coffee or at the end of a meal. She was right, they weren't pie either.

Brennan let out a complicated sigh as her thoughts turned back to Zach, "I should have done something, Booth." There was nothing specific that she could think of, but that didn't stop the irrational thought that she was somehow partially responsible for Zach's actions simply because she hadn't known.

Words really weren't going to help here and so Booth abandoned his coffee on the step next to him and reached out and enveloped her hand in the security of his, "Hindsight is twenty-twenty." Sure now they could all see things that they might have done that might have made a difference, but they couldn't know that for sure that anything they would have done would have made any difference at all anyway.

"If that's an attempt at trying to make me feel better, it's not helping," Despite her comment Brennan took comfort from the warmth of his hand; another reminder that he was very real and very alive.

"Nothing I say is going to make _any_ of us feel better, we all care about Zach; there's nothing about this situation that is going to feel better for a long time," Booth knew that Brennan had a protectiveness for Zach that was almost maternal and only time was going to allow her to deal with this kind of betrayal if she ever really dealt with it at all.

She nodded in agreement – she couldn't see how she was going to ever feel good about what Zach had done – what had happened to him really. The loss she felt went far beyond the loss of what he brought to her team; he had been her protégé, her colleague and her friend. Although, at the moment she wondered if she even knew how to be a friend herself because if she had been the kind of friend that Zach needed, perhaps she would have been able to intervene before he'd become a murderer.

Booth seemed to know where her thoughts had drifted, "Bones...Temperance, we can't change what happened, no matter how much we all wish we could...all we can do is be there for Zach – be his friend, visit him. He's gonna need that now more than ever," Booth was glad that Zach wasn't going to prison, but he wasn't sure that a mental hospital was going to be very good for him either.

For the second time that day, Brennan leaned her head against Booth's shoulder and let out a sigh. He was right – Zach needed them now more than ever. When she had offered Zach the position as her grad student, she had thought he would find a home there at the Jeffersonian. He had, but more than that, they had all become a sort of family. She wasn't going to abandon Zach the way her parents had abandoned her. But even that had come full circle – because of the man sitting next to her holding her hand she had her family again. The reality was that without Booth, she would be less of a person because she wouldn't have had the opportunity to live her life quite as wide and as full and she wasn't sure that she would have realized just what her Jeffersonian family meant to her. She lifted her head and offered him a smile as he glanced over at her, "I think we're more like Thai food, Booth."

Booth let out a soft chuckle and raised a brow at her, "Thai food." He couldn't disagree with that assessment – Thai food was late nights working and long talks and all of those moments that went far beyond coffee and pie and talks at the diner. Thai food was fighting over the last of Mee Krab or showing up at her apartment at midnight knowing full well he had no reason to be there other than he knew that she was still up and needed some distraction. Thai food was sitting close and mulling over cases and catching bad guys together in such a way that they really were superheroes because they made a difference while everyone else was sleeping. Thai food was the perfect way to describe what there relationship was and hopefully what it would remain for a very long time.

She nodded, "Yeah, Thai food." There was so much that had happened over Thai food that if there was no crime left to fight that she'd still want him to show up at her apartment with a boyish smirk on his face with bags of take out. She most certainly would want him to interrupt her when she should have gone home hours before just so she'd stop and eat and share a conversation that often turned into friendly bickering. There was something comforting in Thai food with Booth and she was sure that if there was no more crime to fight that she'd want to describe their relationship like that.

"Thai food it is," Booth noticed the determination in her expression and he knew that despite her claim that she compartmentalized well that she hadn't dealt with the news of his death very well at all. He wanted to reassure her that if it was up to him that he was never going to leave her, never going to purposely disappoint her, and most certainly was never going to betray her.

Brennan let out another sigh, "Thank you, Booth." She wasn't sure what she was thanking him for; maybe for really being alive especially in light of what had happened with Zach.

"If I had known that Sweets wasn't going to tell you, I would have told you myself – it wasn't fair to put you through that, Bones," She might not admit how it had all made her feel, but Booth knew by the way she'd reacted to finding out that he was still alive that she cared very deeply, maybe as deeply as he cared for her.

As irrational as the words were, they tumbled out of her mouth anyway, "Booth, please don't die again." She wasn't sure she could handle losing him twice.

"Not if I can help it, Bones," There was such a warmth in her eyes as Booth looked into them that he acted purely on what he was feeling and didn't consider the implications of what he was doing – or maybe he really didn't care anymore what the consequences would be.

The press of his lips against hers was just another reminder to her of just how real and alive he was and Brennan found herself sighing against his mouth as she kissed him back.

It wasn't a long kiss or even a particularly passionate one, but it held promise for something that was definitely unfurling between them. As they pulled apart, Brennan let her head come to rest against Booth's shoulder again, smiling as he gave her hand a squeeze, content to just sit there and be together.

_**I hope you enjoyed this. The next location will come as soon as real life allows and I'm always open to suggestions for locations for future chapters.**_


	8. Stainless Steel

**Stainless Steel**

"I knew that going in here was going to be a mistake," Seeley Booth gritted through his teeth as he tried to wiggle free from whatever had caught on the back of his FBI vest. He and Bones were crawling through a duct system because some genius had suggested that it was the fastest way to reach some questionable remains and determine whether or not they were human before they would be allowed to bust through the wall.

"Why are you stopping; it shouldn't be that much further," Brennan had quite nearly run into Booth's but when he had come to an abrupt stop. She was annoyed that he'd insisted that he take the lead in case there was still a crazed killer running lose in the ducts which she highly doubted was possible given that the remains were at a stage where her services were needed.

"I got caught on something," Booth wiggled again and it seemed to only firm up the grip of whatever he'd snagged on.

"So move back and get uncaught," It was logical that if he'd been caught going forward that moving backwards was a plausible means to rectify the situation. She tilted her flashlight up to see what he was caught on and her lips pursed together as she could see that a seam in the ductile system had pulled back and had twisted around the heavy duty fabric of Booth's vest.

"It's not that easy, Bones," He wiggled again to demonstrate that he was trying to get uncaught, dammit, "I think I need some help."

Brennan did her best to bite back several witty retorts – most of which she was sure would have jumped right past his head. Instead, she surmised the situation and realized that there was really only one way she was going to help get him unstuck, "Ok, I can see where you're stuck, but I can't reach it from here."

"Well then what do you suggest, _Doctor_ Brennan?" For all Booth knew a rabid rat had sunk its teeth in and was holding of for dear life.

"Don't get your pants in a swirl, Booth," Brennan didn't appreciate the sarcasm considering that she was his only hope to get unstuck. Besides, _she'd_ had to stare at Booth's rather lovely looking gluteal region ever since they'd crawled into the duct and she had been feeling some very specific biological urges as a result.

"Panties in a twist, Bones, you meant don't get my panties in a twist," Booth huffed it out impatiently.

"I never really pictured you wearing women's underwear," Brennan smirked as hunkered low and slid forward.

"I _don't_ wear women's underwear – I was just telling you the correct way to say that expression," Booth couldn't see what Bones was doing but as soon as he felt something touch his leg he let out a yelp – maybe his theory about the rat was right on.

"I need to slide past you to get the right angle to get you unstuck," Brennan explained in amusement.

"Past me? There isn't any room to get past me, Bones," Booth didn't even want to think about just how she planned to find room.

"Well, I'll just have to slide under you then. I can't climb over you," Brennan reasoned that if he was on his hands and knees there was just enough room for her to slide under him and then reach behind him to pull the fabric loose.

Booth wished that there was another option; he didn't want to think about his partner under him – not in this context anyway.

Brennan took his silence as agreement and slid forward and began to shimmy between his legs.

Booth gritted his teeth and tried not to think about Bones underneath him; Bones squirming underneath him.

Ok, she'd made it through and now all she had to do was turn over so she could reach over his head and unhook the fabric. She kneed him in the groin.

"Shit!" Booth sucked in his breath as Bones' boney knee made contact with his three special pals. There were quite a few other words that went through his mind and he wasn't sure if they stayed there or went tumbling out his mouth instead.

Brennan was apologetic, "I'm sorry, Booth, I didn't mean to hit your testicles. There just wasn't much room to maneuver down there." She was only trying to help him get free; surely he wasn't going to hold it against her because she'd accidentally hurt him.

Booth wasn't sure if he should smile at her inference that the lack of room she had was related to his fine manly parts or if he should be upset that she'd made them very aware of just where she was. He was still mulling that over wondering how in the hell she was going to get him loose when he felt a wayward hand in a very personal location, "Bones, what in the hell are you doing?"

Brennan had simply wanted to make sure she hadn't done any permanent damage, given that Booth had jumped away from her squealing like a pig, she was sure that he was going to be just fine, "I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Ok?" Booth scoffed, "You think that feeling me up is a good way to tell if I'm ok?" He looked at her in the light of the flashlight that he'd dropped when he'd first gotten stuck and realized that he was treading on very dangerous ground right now.

"Well clearly you're fine," Brennan smirked as she realized that 'feeling him up' as he'd put it had resulted in Booth pulling himself free, "And you're free too." Now they could continue on towards the remains and get to the task at hand.

"Great," Booth felt relief until he realized that he was going to have to make his way right over Bones to resume.

Apparently she had the same idea, shimmying forward so she could get past him and turn over to crawl. Unfortunately, her shimmy collided with his crawl and she ended up knocking him off balance and right on top of her.

"Bones," Booth mumbled in annoyance and wiggled a little bit to try and get back on his hands and knees, but found that his partner was hindering his progress. He glanced down and noticed that she had a mischievous smirk on her face and he couldn't help but return it with one of his own.

Brennan didn't hesitate; she reached her hand up and cupped the back of his head and pulled him towards her until their lips melted together, spreading a warmth that had far more to do with what had been building between them for years that the feel of soft lips and exploring tongues as they kissed.

Booth felt a little breathless as he pulled away and he began to pepper kisses along her jaw; thoughts of dead people and a murder to solve seemed completely unimportant at the moment. All that seemed to matter to him was kissing Bones, just like he'd dreamed about on a regular basis since he'd met her.

As much as she was enjoying this, Brennan realized that they still had remains to examine, "Booth, the remains."

Booth cut her off with another kiss, remains could wait for a couple more minutes – the dead guy wasn't going to be going anywhere. When he finally ended the kiss, he offered her a resigned smiled, "Ok, let's get to those remains." He moved to crawl past her and he should have known that she was going to go and shimmy again. He let out a gritted groan as that boney knee of hers whacked his special friends again.

Brennan wasn't sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of the situation or smile and so she settled on a smirk, "I'm sorry I hit your testicles again."

"Just stay put until I get past you," Booth leaned down and dropped a kiss on her lips, "You can make it up to them later."

_**I hope you enjoyed this location...and that you can wait for the next.**_


	9. Dr Sweets' Couch

**Dr. Sweets' Couch**

"I don't feel any biological imperative to reproduce, Booth," Brennan looked at her partner in annoyance. They were in the middle of a session with Dr. Sweets and he seemed hell bent on challenging her position on parenthood.

"All I'm saying, Bones, is that I wouldn't trade Parker for anything in this world and I had no idea that I would feel that way until I became his father," Booth wasn't explaining himself well at all. He glared over at Sweets for even bringing up the subject of Father's Day in the first place. He had only wanted to encourage Bones to at least buy her dad a card, but she'd made the leap somehow to bearing children.

"I think that I've made my position on children clear," She couldn't understand why Booth was looking at her as if she had grown a third ear; apparently the one ear that was missing to understand what in the world he was implying.

Sweets looked on with a smile on his face as he watched the pair bicker. He was thoughtfully forming what he hoped would be an insightful response to this obvious misunderstanding; he clearly hadn't heard Agent Booth say anything about Dr. Brennan becoming a mother – unless of course there was subtext that he was missing from a previous conversation – something that was entirely possible.

Booth's fumbling attempt at turning the Father's Day conversation away from himself and onto his partner while in the presence of Sweets was completely backfiring, "Bones, how did we get from you buying your dad a card for Father's Day to this?" Clearly he had missed something that had come out of his mouth and ended up in Bones' ears.

"You never said anything about me buying my father a card," Brennan mentally replayed the entire conversation in her mind at hyper speed and she had no recollection that the word 'card' ever coming up.

"She's right, Agent Booth, you didn't say anything about a card," Sweets was beginning to think that perhaps there was in fact missing subtext that he hadn't been privy to that was at the center of this issue.

"I did too," Booth defended; he was sure he'd said something about a card – or maybe he had just thought about saying it, but either way he hadn't meant for the conversation to take the serpentine path that it had.

"No you didn't," Brennan reiterated.

"I didn't?" Booth really wanted to deflect the attention away from where he was sitting on the couch, "I meant to." He really had; he'd been thinking it very loudly and perhaps he'd just expected that Bones would pick up on it with her super squinty ears.

Sweets was smiling again, "But let's take this opportunity to re-enter the truth zone." He wondered to himself how many moments just like this one they had while working together. "Now, Agent Booth, why don't you tell Dr. Brennan what it is that you meant to say rather than what we all heard."

"What did you hear?" At this point, Booth wasn't sure what he'd said, since clearly what he'd thought he'd said he'd only said to himself.

Brennan inwardly rolled her eyes, "You told me that you thought that since I seemed to adapt well at caring for Andy that I shouldn't be so quick to write off motherhood even though I've clearly stated that I'm not interested in having children."

"When did I bring up Andy?" Booth looked genuinely confused. While it was true that he thought Bones would make a much better mother than she seemed to think she would be, he couldn't even recall thinking about Andy in the last few minutes.

"You didn't," Sweets found this little development interesting to say the least; they were clearly projecting their own insecurities on each other and hearing conversations that hadn't actually happened within the walls of his office during this particular therapy session.

"Yes, he did," Brennan quickly defended, but as she thought about it, she realized that he hadn't said anything about Andy at all, but she had taken that leap because she was thinking about him herself. Her face fell into a frown as the realization dawned on her, "I guess he didn't."

Sweets was leaning back in his chair twirling a pen in his hand, "Clearly there is more going on here than a simple lack of communication." He studied both of the partners for a moment before continuing, "Agent Booth, would it be true to say that you admire Dr. Brennan and believe that in your opinion she would make a good mother," he glanced over at Dr. Brennan who looked like she was going to interrupt, "even though she has made her position on the subject very clear?"

Booth fidgeted in his seat before he caught a look from Bones that caused him to let go of his reservations, "I'm not sure what in the world this has to do with our partnership, but for the record I _do_ think that Bones would be a good mother; she was really good with Andy." Booth looked over at her with an earnest expression on his face, "You _were_ really good with him and I think that maybe you might be cheating yourself out of an experience in life just because..." Booth really didn't want to continue this line of conversation in front of Sweets.

"Because of what, Agent Booth?" Sweets looked eagerly at Dr. Brennan who seemed to understand what Booth was implying without actually saying it, "This is good, I can see that you two are connecting here." He was going to reward himself with an extra hour of Halo 3 when he got home just for this little breakthrough.

Booth had a deer in the headlights expression on his face for a brief moment and then glanced over at Sweets with determination, "Give Bones and I five minutes." The look on his face left no room for negotiation on this one.

Sweets nodded and rose, "Remember, this is a truth zone." He had read the file on Dr. Brennan, he knew about her family and the abandonment issues she most certainly had from that. They would get there eventually, but he could see that they would get their sooner if he left the room; not because he was extremely intimidated by Agent Booth.

As the door closed behind Sweets, Booth looked intently at Bones, "This is about your dad isn't it?"

"I don't know what you mean," Brennan looked into Booth's eyes with confusion clouding hers.

"It's almost Father's Day – Sweets bringing that up got you thinking that this is the first Father's Day in a long time that you've been able to spend with your dad," Booth smiled, "Maybe thinking about all of those missed Father's Days made you think about Andy."

Brennan had to admit that there was some truth in his statement – the whole idea of celebrating Father's Day with a man that she was rebuilding a relationship with made her feel a sense of panic however irrational that was, "I still don't understand how a parent could just abandon their family – do you know how hard it is to find a card for a father who hasn't been around for 15 years?"

"You could just make one – that's what Parker does for every year and those are far better than anything you could get at a card store," Not that he thought Bones would draw stick figures with huge smiley faces on them, but if the sentiment was behind it, he was sure that Max Keenan would think it was the best gift he'd ever gotten.

"I could draw him a skeleton," Brennan seemed to like the idea and if a drawing was what the average father preferred to a greeting card from the store, then she could make sure to use the Latin names and label each of the 206 bones.

Booth wasn't going to tell her that it was a ridiculous idea, no matter how much he thought so. "Are we good?" He wasn't sure how much longer Sweets would continue pacing outside the door before he walked back in on them.

Brennan smiled and nodded, she still wasn't sure how their miscommunication had happened earlier, but things seemed to be fine now, "Oh, or maybe I could ask Angela to help me make something with the Angelator."

"Ok, you do that," Booth impulsively leaned in and pressed a kiss against her lips as if he'd been doing it for years. He had gotten up and moved to open the door to let Sweets back in before he realized what he'd just done.

If Sweets thought that progress had been made when Agent Booth opened the door, one look at the shocked expression on Dr. Brennan's face and the panicked one on Agent Booth's made him realize that he really needed to figure out how to read the subtext between these two and he resigned himself to forgo that extra hour of Halo 3 to research where he'd gone wrong.

_**Ok, so this wasn't what I'd intended when I'd started this location, but I hope you like it anyway. Until the next one.**_


	10. In Repose

**In Repose**

Brennan wasn't blind. As a forensic anthropologist she was _supposed_ to notice things. Well not really notice _just_ things, but the _minutiae_ of things – all of those little things that the ordinary eye could never decipher let alone assign a value to what it meant. She was trained for such things and usually, being able to know what a microscopic nick on a bone meant delighted her because she enjoyed knowing all about the details. However, this latest task that Sweets had given her and Booth as part of their partner's therapy to spend time together being aimless made her ability to notice all of those little details an annoyance at best. It was a perfectly good day to be identifying one of the thousands of remains in Limbo, but instead, here she was, staring up at the sky in the middle of the National Mall next to Booth on some ridiculous excuse for a 'picnic blanket' and all she seemed to be able to do was focus on the minutiae of Booth. Her frustration was palpable as she sent a snuff of air out her nose, "I really don't see the purpose in this."

Booth let out an amused chuckle, "That's the whole point, Bones. There _is_ no purpose. It's supposed to be _aimless_." He glanced at his watch, "So just relax and enjoy yourself because we still have another 48 minutes before we're done." An hour of aimlessness was no problem for Booth if it meant laying next to his partner on a big blanket under a gorgeous blue sky; he could almost forget for a few minutes about the line he'd drawn and let himself imagine what it might be like if they weren't _just_ partners. The fact that the color of the sky reminded him of Bones' eyes brought a smile to his face and at least they weren't sitting in Sweets' office.

Brennan inwardly groaned at the fact that only twelve minutes had passed since they'd settled themselves near a lonely tree a short distance from the Washington Monument; a tree that at this hour of the day provided only a hint of shade. She supposed that she could study and mentally catalogue the way that the limbs twisted and parted until they were twigs bearing leaves, but that simply reminded her of how many bone fragments she needed to piece together to reassemble a skull from the latest limbo case. Perhaps if she mentally rehearsed laying out the individual bones to assemble a complete skeleton that would help pass the time – or at the very least provide a certain level of distraction from the fact that she was laying just inches from Booth who's musculature covered his bones quite nicely.

Booth had his fingers laced behind his head and he was thankful that he'd thought to wear jeans and a t-shirt for this assignment – no way was he going to ruin a twelve hundred dollar suit because Sweets wanted them to watch the sky together. A rather strange conglomeration of clouds caused him to snort out a laugh, "Parker would like that one." He pointed up at the clouds drifting by lazily and glanced over at Bones.

"All clouds are just a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals floating in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body, Booth," Brennan furrowed her brow and glanced over at him wondering why a six-year old boy would be interested in clouds – did he had an interest in meteorology?

"No squinty-speak, Bones, I know that what a cloud is, but that's not what I meant," It amused him that she was so damn literal. "If you take a closer look, you'd be able to see that it looks like a puppy."

Brennan looked at him quizzically, "Even if I stand up, which would defeat the purpose of this exercise, it isn't going to significantly alter the view I have the cloud right now." She glanced back up and squinted her eyes a little, but she just couldn't envision the shape of a puppy, a long blob maybe, but not a puppy.

"See, now you've waited too long. The puppy looks like it's been swallowed by a python," Booth had a definitive whine in his voice and he wasn't even about to launch into the fact that taking a closer look didn't always mean literally getting closer to something. Squinty she was and squinty she would always be and maybe that was just part of the irresistible charm of Bones.

"Do you do this with Parker?" Brennan gestured to how they were laying in repose on the mall. She had to admit that although her mind immediately began to catalogue the minutiae of Booth's face and the crinkles around his warm brown eyes the moment she looked over at him that part of her was enjoying this.

"You mean hanging around doing nothing?" Booth grinned at her. "All the time, Bones; that's one of the best parts about being his dad." He wondered to himself if Max Keenan had ever taken the time to lay on the grass at the park with his kids and look up at the sky pointing out clouds.

"Does he like it?" Brennan thought it seemed illogical that a child would find inactivity an enjoyable pastime. One of the things she found intimidating about children was their short attention span and her perception that they needed large quantities of stimuli to keep them entertained. Although her short time caring for Andy had shown her surprisingly that even 'dancing phalanges' had a rather soothing effect on an otherwise fussy child. Perhaps the study of the shapes clouds made _would_ be an equally satisfying experience.

"Yeah, he does," Booth smiled at her and he hoped that she couldn't tell that he was watching her mouth while she spoke; her lips looked so soft and he could almost imagine what it might be like to kiss her.

Brennan glanced back up at the sky, "You're a good father, Booth; at least compared to mine. You're there for Parker." She felt a mixture of regret and longing when she thought about the complexities of her relationship with her father and all that she had missed out on by not having him around. But she had no regrets about the person she had become or what she had accomplished; only that she had allowed her father's absence to shape her into a person that put layers around herself to keep from getting hurt by other people who might leave. It was the man lying next to her that had helped her to see that the only real regret in life was not taking as many chances as you got. She at least had gotten a second chance with her family and really she'd gotten a second chance with Booth too.

"Don't ever forget that he sacrificed his freedom; risked facing the death penalty so he could be with you, Bones," Booth rolled over to face her and his fingers reached out instinctively and touched hers.

"I know that, Booth, but you're not a criminal; he has every reason to be proud of you," Brennan couldn't be proud of what her father had chosen to do in her life, but the perpetual quandary she was in was that in spite of it all she loved her father.

Booth could see the conflict going on inside of her, "He was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for you because he loves you." He smiled at her as she turned to face him. Clearly the sky would still be there later.

"You took a bullet for me...why did you do that?" Brennan looked into his eyes; they had sort of skirted around the issue of him being shot and her thinking that he was dead for two weeks other than the fact that she'd been angry at him for not telling her. But now as she considered that if her father was willing to face the death penalty simply because he wanted to be able to have a relationship with her, what did logic dictate that Booth felt?

"She was going to shoot you," Booth wasn't entirely comfortable with where this was going, but he wasn't entirely uncomfortable either. He reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear; an excuse really to touch her face as he realized just where this moment was going.

"But you could have died; I thought you _did_ die," Brennan's rational mind told her that if Booth was willing to die for her that on some level he loved her; it wasn't rational to put your life at stake for someone else otherwise.

"No, I'm here; you're stuck with me," Booth's smile returned and he felt a boost of courage as he could almost see the wheels turning furiously in her head. She was coming to the same conclusion that he'd slowly been arriving at himself. His damn line had been crossed in his heart so long ago that he couldn't even see it anymore. Resistance was indeed futile.

"Stuck is the wrong word; stuck would imply that I'm not here of my own free will," Brennan smiled at him; something in these last few moments had peeled away the last few layers that she'd been hiding behind and it felt liberating to see in his eyes the same feelings that she'd been wrestling with for a while now; certainly before Christmas.

"Free will, huh?" Booth felt his smile widen and then he looked at her for a long moment before he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers briefly.

A quizzical look was on Brennan's face as Booth pulled away and it was evident that he thought he had misjudged things by the panic that flitted across his features. She quirked a smile, "I think maybe we need to quantify that and make sure it wasn't an anomaly."

"Anoma-what?" Booth hoped that it was a good thing.

Brennan just stared at his mouth wanting very much to kiss him again, "You said we have what...48 minutes?"

"More like 35," Booth glanced at his watch to see how much of his hour of aimlessness they had left. "Of course the hour was just a suggestion...we could...mpnfp."

Brennan found herself gripping the front of his t-shirt as she silenced him with a kiss. Perhaps this idea of aimlessness had some benefit to it after all.

_**Real life just keeps on interfering with writing – funny how that happens. I'll have the next location up just as soon as life allows. Hope you enjoyed this one.**_


	11. Life is a Zoo

**Life is a Zoo**

Brennan's brow was set into deep furrow as she blinked several times and then pulled her lower lip into a worried nibble as she repeatedly hit the backspace key; the sentence would certainly _not_ do. How she had thought that _'Kathy's swimsuit caused Andy's eyes to nearly stumble out of their sockets as he struggled to look her in the eye.' _would actually move the plot along was a mystery. Even if they could spontaneously fall out of their sockets, eyes couldn't stumble – that would imply they could walk around all of their own volition. She pursed her lips together and stared at the screen for a long moment. The deadline for her next chapter was rapidly approaching and her publisher had already extended it four times. As patient as they had been with her being a best selling author with a very demanding real job, they wanted a chapter by the end of the week. She paused and leaned back in her chair, not quite fully relaxing before another idea hit her. She quickly started typing away only to hit the backspace key about six words in. There was no getting around the fact that she had a formidable case of writer's block and she wasn't going to get very far if she didn't find some inspiration soon.

"Bones! You in here?" Booth called out to his partner as he strode purposefully towards her office, fully expecting her to have her nose in some squinty journal or be longingly caressing a piece of bone that would no doubt date back several thousand years. If that's what thrilled her, hey, then more power to her, but today he had plans and they didn't involve dead guys.

"Booth," Brennan glanced up as he came into view, her lips pulled into a smile – if Booth was there, that meant they had a case, and a case meant that she could put off this chapter for a little while longer. The appearance of Parker poking out from behind his father took her by surprise and caused her to give Booth a quizzical look.

"Dr. Bones!" Aside from his mop of blond hair that was all Rebecca, Parker Booth was a perfect miniature version his father. He gleefully trotted along after his dad knowing that he had the whole day to spend with him; a day full of monkeys and ice cream and anything else he might be able to talk his dad into.

"Hey, Bones, I just wanted to drop this off," He slid the file he'd been carrying onto her desk; he'd felt the need to drive it over to the Jeffersonian before heading off for a day with Parker. They had a court case coming up and she'd been asking for this; she'd probably stay up all night reviewing it.

"Dr. Bones, we're going to see zebras and monkeys and kangaroos!" Parker seemed to hop just a bit as if he was imitating the kangaroos himself.

Brennan let out a soft chuckle, "You are; well, you should make sure that your father takes you through the giant panda exhibit as well – they're endangered."

"Parker wanted to go to the zoo," Booth flashed her one of those smiles that could send the average woman melting right into a pile of goo. Somehow he felt compelled to explain why he a grown man was going to spend the day looking at wild animals when he had plenty of work to do.

"It's daddy's birthday, he wanted to go to the zoo," Parker corrected his father insistently.

"Your birthday?" Brennan glanced at the calendar on her desk; she was sure that she hadn't missed Booth's birthday and surely it didn't come early this year – that would be impossible.

Booth mouthed silently, "It's actually on Saturday," His eyes pleaded with her to just go with him on this one and not spoil the day for his son who seemed far too excited at getting to spend a weekday in the summer with his dad to let anyone suck the wind out of their sail; least of all one annoyingly beautifully forensic anthropologist who had a penchant for being a little too precise at times, "Parker wanted to go to the zoo didn't you bud?"

"It's _your_ favorite too, Daddy; specially the really big monkeys," Parker started to giggle as he scratched himself under the arms and jumped up and down.

"Actually, those are apes," Brennan reasoned that he was either talking about gorillas or orangutans and both of them were greater apes.

"You should come too, Dr. Bones," Parker sounded insistent as if he'd just come up with the most amazing idea. "She should come too, shouldn't she, Daddy?" He knew that his dad could talk Dr. Bones into it; he could do anything because he worked for the FBI.

"Bones has bones to look at Parker," Booth wasn't about to guilt Bones into coming along with him and Parker, although the idea of her walking around the zoo with them did sound nice. Getting Bones out of the lab would be a good thing, but she always seemed to have something she was working on.

"Can't you come with us? _Please_?" If Booth's eyes had the ability to turn most women to goo, Parker's did the same task with a swirl of warm fuzzies and lightning speed.

Booth was about to gently reprimand his son when Bones interrupted.

"Actually, I don't have any remains to look at and I have a pretty bad case of writer's block," Brennan offered a smile and shut off her laptop, "The zoo would be a nice break if that's ok with you." She didn't want to impose on Booth's day with his son, but she did need some distraction if she was ever going to get an idea that she could carry further than two sentences to complete her chapter.

"Yeah!" Parker grinned victoriously, "Now you can help celebrate Daddy's birthday too." Parker knew that you spent your birthday with people who were special to you and he knew that Dr. Bones was special to Daddy.

* * *

It was a nice day to be strolling around the National Zoo; it was midweek and not at the height of tourist season quite yet so the crowds weren't all that thick. Parker was alternately running to the next exhibit and running back to Booth and Dr. Bones to tell them to hurry up because they were going to miss the tiger sleeping or the elephant swinging his trunk back and forth. Of course the cotton candy and the soda he'd had along with the three bites of hot dog might have had something to do with that.

Brennan hadn't typically been comfortable around children, but since she'd cared for Andy and she'd gotten to know her nieces she didn't find them nearly as intimidating as she had before. Parker Booth was enough like his father that she found it amusing the way he seemed to zigzag all over, using up needless energy.

"Hey, bud, we're almost to the pandas," Booth knew that the large black and white bears were a favorite of his son's and he was getting the impression that they were also a favorite of his favorite forensic anthropologist too.

"Yeah!" Parker galloped ahead, glancing back every so often to make sure that the two very slow adults were keeping up with him. When they finally entered the viewing area, Parker seemed to have a myriad of questions, "Can he do flips?"

"They aren't known for their acrobatics," Brennan looked at Parker with a little confusion; the animals were currently sprawled out as if they were lying on a beach in the South Pacific taking a nap.

Booth leaned over and whispered, "He's talking about an animated movie."

"But they're not animated, they're sleeping," Brennan replied, gesturing toward the sleeping animals.

"Kung Fu Panda!" Parker swung his arms with absolutely no coordination at all as he jumped around and managed to knock Dr. Bones right in the jaw with his fist.

"Parker!" Booth was conflicted between getting his sugar infused son calmed down and seeing if his partner was ok, "Bones, are you ok?" He immediately reached out to check the spot that she was gingerly touching herself.

"Dr. Bones, I'm really sorry," Parker looked like he was about to cry as he looked at the lady that had made this trip to the zoo extra fun by telling him interesting things he never knew about all of the animals.

"I'll be fine," Brennan rubbed her jaw and regarded Parker a bit warily but found that she felt something akin to goo as she saw his eyes brimming with tears.

"You gotta kiss it and make it better," Parker started tugging on his daddy's shirt; his daddy's kisses always made _his_ boo-boos feel better.

"See, Bones is gonna be fine, but you gotta keep your arms to yourself, bud," Booth felt as if he'd dodged a bullet.

"_No_, _Daddy _you gotta kiss her and make it better," Parker couldn't believe that his daddy would withhold something as powerful as a cure all kiss from someone who he knew was so important to his daddy like Dr. Bones was.

Booth flashed Bones an awkward smile; he knew his son and his son wasn't going to give up until he gave in and if he didn't give in he'd have to explain that kisses really don't cure anything at all and he wasn't ready for that conversation. He cleared his throat and found himself looking into Bones' eyes and suddenly the kiss that he'd intended to plant on her cheek to placate his son ended up on her oh so soft lips and for much longer than the peck he'd planned. His eyes widened as he pulled away, sure that she was going to put some kung fu moves on him.

"Do you feel better, Dr. Bones?" Parker seemed relieved that his daddy had kissed it and made it better – Dr. Bones _was_ smiling after all.

"Yes, Parker, I do," Brennan couldn't help but smile and as she glanced over at Booth, she noticed a grin spreading across his face too. She might have started her day off with writer's block, but after that kiss she had plenty of ideas. Of course not all of them had to do with Kathy and Andy and her book; Saturday _was_ Booth's birthday after all.

_**Now I have no idea when Booth's birthday really is, but I'm sure you'll forgive me. **____** I'll have the next location up as soon as life allows.**_


	12. Booth and Brennan Sitting in a Tree

**Booth and Brennan Sitting in a Tree**

The maple tree had been there probably longer than the mansion where Hodgins lived given the way it spread out like a vast genealogy. Really it was several maple trees that countless years ago had grown together to form a gazebo of sorts from the trunks; in fact at some point over the years someone had built a bench in between the great masts, taking advantage of the shady canopy that the leafy branches formed in the summer to provide a cooler place to sit in those hot DC summer days. Today, however, was cool by DC standards for the 4th of July. It had been raining off and on all day long but in spite of that there had been a good turn out for the barbecue that Angela had insisted that she and Jack host for Independence Day.

But even in the midst of the spirited fun of childish games that Angela had organized, Brennan couldn't seem to shake a feeling of sadness that seemed to defy what her rational mind dictated was logical. And in the spirit of not being rational, she wasn't sure if she had found the tree or if it had found her. In either case, the solitude it offered seemed to give her a refuge from the fun she was supposed to be having. She leaned back against the heavy trunk of the old maple and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them as she watched her new assistant Clark pair up with an intern for a three-legged race. Somehow just the thought that she had a new assistant caused a deep pang and she realized exactly where this sadness she'd been carrying around all day had come from. Zach should have been there with them; he was part of them, he should have been part of this too. If only she could turn back time maybe she could have done something to prevent him from falling under the influence of Gormagon, but that was another irrational thought among what felt like a thousand today and she let out a frustrated sigh instead and blinked back tears which seemed to have suddenly appeared.

She didn't notice Booth until he had settled himself next to her on the bench, "You're missing the three-legged race, Bones." He gestured towards where someone had just stumbled halfway down the course into a tangle of arms and legs and he couldn't resist letting out a soft chuckle. Truth be told he had been looking for her to partner up with him for the race when he'd noticed she had slipped away.

"You know they really aren't racing with three legs; they're still using four legs. It's actually impossible to have a three-legged race unless one of the partners is willing to undergo amputation," Brennan felt the need to reconnect with her rational side which had seemingly abandoned her for most of the afternoon.

Booth rolled his eyes at her squinty-speak. "C'mon, Bones, you need to get into the spirit of Independence Day." This was of course the greatest country on the face of the earth in his not so humble opinion and it was worth celebrating the nation's 232nd birthday; although Bones seemed to need to be reminded of that fact.

Brennan didn't feel like putting up any pretenses; she was sure that by now Booth had already honed in on the extra shimmer in her eyes and the fact that she was looking thoughtfully in the direction of the apartment over Hodgins' very large garage, "I know that it's not rational, but with Zach missing it just doesn't seem the same." It wasn't that she missed Zach per se; she'd visited him at the mental hospital just a few days ago, but it was the fact that a piece of her team was missing that felt like part of herself was missing too.

Booth scooted over a bit until he could nudge her with his arm, "Zach made a choice, Bones. I know we all wish we could have done something, but none of us would have ever thought he'd go down that road." They'd had many discussions just like this one since Zach had revealed that he was Gormagon's apprentice and he knew that Bones had taken his betrayal far harder than anyone else.

"I know that," Brennan let out a long sigh and glanced over at Booth. A soft smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she realized just how thankful that she was for the genuine friendship of her partner. "Just like it doesn't make sense that I love my father who is clearly a criminal despite the outcome of his trial, it doesn't make sense that I miss Zach who killed an innocent man."

"He was your friend, Bones; your very own squint in training who grew up to be a full fledged member of the brain trust. It's natural that you still care about him," Booth nudged her again and flashed a smile, "We all feel it you know." No matter how annoying he had found Zach more times than he could count, he had cared about the guy too in his own way.

Brennan's nose scrunched up as if she was going to ask what it was that they all felt.

Booth interjected, "Betrayed. We all feel betrayed because we all had a connection to Zach. It's when the people who are the closest betray you that it hurts the most." He mentally reminded himself that this was the very reason that Bones had been pissed as hell at him when she found out that he wasn't really dead. In a very twisted way, he knew that she had felt betrayed by him for dying and then again by not really being dead. He hoped that they were past that now and he had vowed to himself and threatened Sweets just short of death that those circumstances would never be repeated.

"I thought he was more rational than that. If he had been able to think through his actions maybe he wouldn't have done it," Even as she spoke she knew that there wasn't anything that could have changed how things had played out, save that Zach had made a different choice.

Booth hugged her a little closer, "Bones, Zach did what he did. You yourself showed him the flaw in his thinking." He wasn't going to point out that he didn't see rational thinking all that rational when common sense didn't always fit into the equation.

It had been one of the most painful things she'd ever done showing Zach the error in his reasoning. And somehow it was in that moment that she realized that she no longer wanted to deny what she was feeling for Booth; as if to do so would be to be holding onto her own flawed reasoning. She had debated over and over again in her mind; the woman versus the anthropologist, that all of those little tokens Booth had given her over the course of their partnership held a deeper more significant meaning than just a pig or a Smurf. She looked up at him and found him smiling down at her and that was all of the push she needed to lean up and press her lips softly against his.

Booth wasn't going to question just what it was that made Bones kiss him; they had been moving slowing in this direction for quite a while and it had only been a matter of time before they'd gotten there. He smiled against her lips as he eagerly returned the kiss; more than content to just spent the rest of the evening right here with Bones.

In the midst of the flurry of activities, Angela had wondered what had happened to her best friend when she noticed the pair sitting on the bench nestled in the large maple tree on the other side of the pond. She couldn't help but let out a strangled squeal of delight at what was unfolding right before her eyes. Despite the fact that she was sure that Bren would launch into some explanation about how there was no anthropological inevitability about the sequence of events, she couldn't help but sing under her breath, "Booth and Brennan sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Brennan pushing a baby carriage."

_**Thanks for reading. I hope to have another chapter up as soon as my writing mojo and real life allows.**_


	13. Joe's Motel in the Middle of Nowhere

**Joe's Motel in the Middle of Nowhere**

"Of course there's only one bed, with my luck, I'm surprised it's not a twin bed," Sarcasm was evident in Booth's voice as he groused his way into the motel room. It was bad enough that they'd been sent to this spot on a map that if you blinked you'd miss it because it was so damn small. But to make matters worse, his department issued SUV got a flat tire and no one in the motor pool had bothered to replace the spare. And given that the town was smaller than your average suburban mall, he was lucky that there had been a motel at all let alone a garage that would be open at 7:00am and not a moment sooner even if you were an FBI Special Agent than you very much.

Brennan had been outside fielding a call from Angela and as she finished the call she walked into the small room and furrowed her brow as she quickly catalogued the contents before stating the obvious, "There's only one bed."

"Way to make an observation there, Bones," Booth wasn't quite sure how this was going to play out without him getting in a great deal of trouble with one forensic anthropologist who was used to being able to pick whatever hotel room she wanted. The honorable thing to do of course was to offer to sleep on the floor; it was also the road to self preservation if he knew what was good for him.

"They didn't have anything else?" She had been standing right there when Booth had asked about two rooms in the first place and the proprietor of the family-run establishment had apologized stating that all of the other rooms were already full. It was the only motel on a long stretch of lonely highway so it was perfectly reasonable that he was telling the truth, but surely there had to be a roll-a-way bed or something.

"Bones, it was this or sleep in the SUV; I can just take the floor," Booth wasn't happy about it. Sleeping on lovely dated shag carpet that had seen who knew what over the years sounded about as appealing as spending an afternoon racing beetles with Zach and Hodgins.

"I'll go ask about a roll-a-way," Before Booth could say anything to the contrary, Brennan had disappeared out the doorway and headed to the motel office. She wasn't overly thrilled about having to spend the night in the same room as Booth; they had been bickering for the better part of the last couple of hours and most of that was due in large part to the fact that it had been a very long day with a very long drive to look forward to and it had been what felt close to an eternity since she'd had someone to satisfy her biological urges with. Booth being so damn attractive didn't help and the flat tire after dark had been the proverbial sprinkles on the cake.

Booth took a deep breath and glanced around to see if there were any extra blankets or maybe another bed hidden somewhere, like behind the curtains or maybe in the bathtub. He furrowed his brow as he considered that sharing a room with Bones for an entire night in the middle nowhere was not going to be any fun at all; she'd irritated him so much today that he wasn't sure what he wanted to do more – shoot her or shove her up against the wall and kiss her. Clearly the second option was out and the first one had serious disadvantages to him remaining an FBI agent. Option three, however, seemed to elude him.

"They don't even have roll-a-way beds," Brennan looked more annoyed than the simple inconvenience of no extra bed would allow; Booth had already offered to sleep on the floor, so that couldn't be what was upsetting her.

"So I'll just take the floor; problem solved," Booth would just deal with it. He'd most likely wake up with a kink in his neck, but he'd had worse as an Army sniper. He quirked an eyebrow at Bones, "Did they say if they had any extra blankets?"

Brennan's tone had a certain petulance to it, "I was going to but then he asked me if my husband and I had an argument; he immediately assumed that you and I were married." Not that she had bothered to correct the man; she had simply glared and stormed out of the motel office.

For all the times that Booth didn't regard Bones they way he would a normal woman, she certainly was acting like one now and in true manly fashion, he had absolutely no clue how he was supposed to fix this without getting in trouble somehow. He cleared his throat, "I'll just go ask if there are any extra blankets." If he was brave, he might just tell the motel owner that he and the missus we're doing just fine thank you, but they needed a little extra warmth. Instead he simply headed towards the office hoping that Bones wouldn't insist that he sleep in the SUV instead by the time he got back.

Brennan glanced up as Booth came back in the room carrying an armful of blankets and an extra pillow. "So we're set then." She wasn't exactly tired, but she also didn't want to sit up all night and talk either so she headed straight for the bathroom in an attempt to get ready for bed.

Booth was already trying to get comfortable on the floor when Bones emerged from the bathroom; that one bed in the middle of the room hadn't left much space on the floor for him to lie down, but he'd be fine, just as long as there weren't any cockroaches or spiders lying in wait under the bed until the light was turned off.

Brennan turned out the light, shimmied out of her jeans and crawled under the covers. She wasn't tired; she wasn't tired at all and because she wasn't tired all she could think about was how Booth was laying on the floor, more than likely just wearing boxers or tighty-whities with that t-shirt of his. That thought of course led to her thinking about the view she'd gotten when she'd barged into his bathroom after she'd found out that he wasn't really dead. It had been a very nice view and suddenly, she couldn't seem to get comfortable in a bed that just a few minutes before had looked very comfortable.

Booth was staring up at the ceiling listening to Bones squirm around while he attempted to go to sleep. Clearly that wasn't going to happen any time soon because of little miss insomnia up there on the bed. He was about to say something when he heard something that sounded a little strange and a little familiar all at the same time.

Brennan had concluded that the deep even breathing coming from the floor plus the fact that she hadn't heard Booth make a sound in a while that he must be asleep. And if he was asleep then she could just quickly take care of a few biological urges herself and then drift off to sleep. While not an ideal method for overall satisfaction, she reasoned that it would be quick and to the point and would definitely make sharing a room with Booth easier to deal with and the ride home in the morning much more pleasant.

Booth's eyes widened as he the pieces of the mystery puzzle very quickly slid together as to what Bones was doing up there all alone. Despite his best efforts to pretend that he was just sleeping, he was feeling wide awake; in fact parts of him were feeling far more awake than other parts and getting more and more awake with each passing second. He thought that he would just let things pass, wait for her to go to sleep and then take care of his own little problem. That is until he heard her mumble his name. With his eyes wider than the ocean, Booth's voice squeaked, "Bones, what are you doing?"

Brennan let out a yelp, "Booth, I thought you were asleep." She was brilliant enough to know that Booth was no innocent and clearly he knew she was up to something; mumbling his name probably had just solidified his suspicions.

"Yeah, I picked up on that," Booth was doing his best to keep his tone even despite the fact that at the moment he was feeling more than a little keyed up.

Brennan wasn't sure how to handle the situation; it was clear that he knew exactly what she was doing so she decided that the direct approach was probably best and given the way he reacted whenever she brought up sex, she was sure that he would just roll over and go to sleep, at least she hoped he would, "I was trying to deal with some of the stress of the day by satisfying some biological urges."

Booth inwardly groaned; did she really just say that? Oh, hell, she did and now there was no way that he was going to get any sleep until he found a way to deal with the situation in his shorts. He glanced over at her in the dim light filtering in through the break in the curtains, "I didn't really need to know that even though I was pretty sure I knew that." He let out a frustrated sigh, "Why did you say my name?"

This time Brennan felt a sinking feeling, "Did I?" She knew she had, but right now she was wishing that Booth hadn't heard her.

Suddenly, Booth felt very confident, "Entertaining a little fantasy there, Dr. Brennan?" His smug smile couldn't have been louder and if he'd been wearing his 'cocky' belt buckle, the rooster would have crowed to emphasize his ego.

"As if you haven't thought about me yourself," Brennan didn't know for sure that he'd shared similar fantasies, but he was a man and she'd seen the way he'd looked at her; it didn't take quantum physics to make that leap.

"Look if I admit that I have; and I know that you just did, and I'm pretty sure we've both been in denial for quite a while can I get off the floor?" Booth knew that he was pushing it, but hell, what was Bones doing? The worst that could happen right now was that she would throw him out of the room and he'd have to spend the night in an SUV with a flat tire. At least then he wouldn't have to listen to her say his name while she satisfied those damn biological urges of hers.

"What about your line?" Brennan wasn't going to deny that having him share the bed would be far superior to what she'd been trying to accomplish on her own.

Booth let out a snort, "I think that got blown all to hell just a minute ago, don't you?" If she thought that some kind of line wasn't crossed, well then she wasn't the genius that he thought she was.

"You make a valid point," Brennan was feeling a little too hormonally charged to argue, "And Angela has been saying that we've been in denial for a long time." Clearly now that they were both admitting to it, there was no way to rationalize this one in the morning.

"But we're not now, or are we?" Booth was suddenly confused, or maybe just incredibly turned on, either way, he needed her to clarify something before he went and took a very cold shower.

"I thought we just cleared that up," Brennan glanced down at the floor, "I would have thought you'd have been up here by now." Most men if given the green card wouldn't have hesitated.

Booth carefully pulled himself up off of the floor and crawled under the covers next to Bones, "This isn't just about satisfying biological urges is it, because if it is, I'd rather stay in denial."

"You don't want to stay in denial any more than I do," Brennan called his bluff as she leaned in to kiss him and as she felt him pull her closer and deepen the kiss, she felt very definite evidence that denial was just no longer possible.

_**I hope you enjoyed; until our next location...you just never know where they're going to turn up next.**_


	14. Nothing Like The Side Of An SUV

**Nothing Like The Side Of An SUV**

"My eyes are never going to recover from that...that, that," Booth gestured wildly behind him as he marched towards his SUV with Bones rushing to catch up. As he reached the vehicle, he turned and pointed an accusatory finger at her, "This is your fault...that image is seared into my brain now...I could have gone my entire life never seeing that and I would have been blissfully happy." He knew he was being completely irrational – Bones had simply asked him for a ride – she hadn't orchestrated what they walked in on.

"It is physically impossible to sear your brain just by walking in on someone," Brennan wasn't sure that being apologetic for something that wasn't really her fault was the correct approach here given how Booth was overreacting, but her gut didn't have a voice and if it did she was sure that she would have much more to worry about from the obvious auditory hallucinations than feeling at a loss for how to deal with her partner.

"No, trust me, it's there," Booth thumped his finger against his temple. Who knew that a simple invitation to a barbecue could have turned out so twisted; this was one of the reasons that people should lock their doors. He grimaced as he yanked the passenger door open for Bones who didn't seem interested at all in getting in the vehicle; instead she just stood there and leaned against the side of the vehicle.

"She apologized; she said they lost track of time," Brennan had been somewhat amused at what they'd walked in on, but apparently Booth didn't see the humor in it. He seemed intent on solidifying the event in his mind rather than brushing it off. If he would just step back and approach it rationally, he could get quite a few tanks of gas out of this one by giving Hodgins a hard time. Surely that was some sort of male-bonding ritual.

"Lost track of time? How in the world do you go from pulling out the guacamole and bean dip to that?" Booth grimaced again. It wasn't the view of Angela that he had minded so much; he wasn't blind to the fact that she was an attractive woman; not as attractive as Bones, but definitely nice to look at. What he minded was the view of Hodgins' lily white butt while he licked the aforementioned guacamole off of Angela; a very naked Angela. The whole image was just too disturbing; sure he knew that the two of them had difficulty keeping their hands off of each other, but that didn't mean he wanted to stand there and watch it like it was the Super Bowl. He let out a whirring sigh and leaned back against the inside of the open door.

Brennan smirked at Booth, "Integrating food into the sexual experience has been known to heighten the pleasure." She herself had engaged in a little food play with her foreplay on occasion. Certainly she hadn't expected to walk in on Angela and Hodgins having sex in the kitchen; but Angela had told them to just come on in when they got there.

Booth just shot Bones a glare in an attempt to stem the tide of this conversation before it got completely out of hand. He did not want to prolong the discussion of kinky food.

She apparently didn't catch the clue, "You know I didn't overreact like this when I caught you in your bathtub." She raised her eyebrows to emphasize her point, but suddenly she found her thoughts wandering to the nice view she'd caught. She tried to compartmentalize and shove back behind the line the sudden thought that she wouldn't mind at all if she found Booth covered something tasty in her kitchen. Clearly not an appropriate thought given that they were simply partners, but not all that surprising considering what they'd just walked in on either.

Booth looked slightly flustered; he was definitely going to have to hoist a few sails and grab the jib or whatever the hell other boat metaphors he could use to change the direction of this ship, "First of all, I'm allowed to be naked in my own bathtub in my own bathroom in my own house, which I would like to point out, was locked. You broke in. You could have at least called." When he felt he had sufficiently glowered at her he continued, "Secondly, I was not in the middle of having sex with my girlfriend when you walked in, thank you very much." He rested his hand on the frame of the vehicle and leaned toward Bones.

"When did you start dating someone?" Brennan was sure that if Booth had been dating someone at the time his death was faked that she would have known about it; however, he wasn't exactly forthcoming when he was dating Cam, so maybe he just didn't find it important to share that sort of information with her. She felt indignant at that thought; and if she was honest with herself, jealous. And if he did have a mystery girlfriend, then he certainly did have a point about walking in on him unannounced.

"I'm not dating anyone," Booth looked at her with a bewildered expression. She had to be so damn literal that she couldn't just follow the subtlety of the conversation they were having.

"Then why did you mention having sex with your girlfriend that I didn't even know you had; I thought we were partners – aren't we supposed to share things like that?" Brennan felt hurt that she'd been excluded from something that important and she was a bit unsettled at the rise of jealously she was feeling.

"I was using a hypothetical situation – you walked in on me somewhere that you shouldn't have – in a place where people are generally expected to be naked and where you don't expect people to walk in on you," Booth blurted out in a flustered breath, "Unlike Hodgins' kitchen – you don't generally expect that, especially when you've been invited over." Just the image of all that guacamole made him never want to see another green glob as long as he lived.

"So it's a hypothetical girlfriend then," Brennan just wanted to clarify Booth's social status.

"Yes, there is no actual girlfriend," Booth was annoyed that she had to point that out. It was bad enough to walk in on Angela and Hodgins, but now he was going to be tortured by the image of that when deep down somewhere in a twisted portion of his soul that he would surely have to go to confession for he thought he could redeem guacamole if he could slather it all over Bones. He unconsciously moved a little closer to Bones and leaned his shoulder against the doorway of the SUV.

"So how long has it been since you last saw someone?" Brennan concluded that if Booth hadn't been addressing his biological urges that it was logical that he would be more sensitive to knowing that someone else was enjoying it.

Booth looked at her with a dumbfounded annoyance, "What in the world does my lack of a love life have to do with a seven-layer boinkfest?" Crude as it was, he wasn't in the mood to be grilled by the social queen herself over his romantic failings.

Brennan winced, "That was offensive."

"Well so is you asking me about the last time I had sex," Booth didn't want to talk about sex with Bones because that naturally led him to think about sex with Bones and after the eye scarring site in the Hodgins/Montenegro kitchen, he did not need any help getting his thoughts there as it was.

"I'm just concerned that if you don't have a way to release them that it's going to affect your work; I mean look at the way you're overreacting," She had a completely serious expression on her face and the thought flitted through her mind like a purposeless butterfly with no destination in mind that she would be more than happy to help him relieve some of that tension.

Booth leaned towards her, not really taking into consideration that he was mere inches from her now, "I'm not overreacting." Of course by now he was breathing a little heavier and he could tell that Bones seemed to be too; her blue eyes were darker than normal and if he didn't have that damn line so firmly in place he would swear that she was about to kiss him.

His lips tasted better than she'd imagined as her fingers curled into the front of his t-shirt to pull him in closer and she made a mental note that she enjoyed the way his hands splayed out across her hips. As his tongue delved into her mouth and he pulled her firmly against him, she reasoned that it was only natural that this was the obvious conclusion to walking in on Angela and Hodgins. She sighed against his mouth and decided that she was going to have to thank Angela later and ask for the recipe for that seven-layer dip.

_**Well with that, I'm off to the real world again and will return as soon as my mojo delivers the next location to me. Hope you enjoyed it – I always enjoy your reviews.**_


	15. Popcorn and Plasma

**Popcorn and Plasma**

The domesticity of it all struck her as her hand was midway to her mouth with a bite of popcorn. Panic struck almost instantaneously after that and she did her best to quell it by eating the popcorn and not choking on it. It was bad enough that she had let Booth finally talk her into getting a television – a plasma screen no less, but here they were watching a movie that Booth had deemed a classic for anyone who was over 30. It wasn't the television or the movie that had caused the panic but a glimpse down at her bare feet propped up on her coffee table and Booth's right next to them. Somehow two pairs of bare feet seemed to scream comfort and intimacy in a way that nothing else had and she wondered how they had gotten here. Was this the kind of thing that other partners at the FBI did together, suddenly she was sure that they didn't.

Booth nudged her with his elbow, seemingly oblivious to her revelation, "You gotta watch this part, Bones." How she had never seen any of the Indiana Jones movies he wasn't sure, but he was glad that he got to be the one to rectify that gross oversight by starting her at the very beginning.

Brennan glanced at Booth and then at the television as a giant ball started rolling at a rather high rate of speed towards the archeologist who was the focal point of the movie. She furrowed her brow, "The danger that he's encountering is highly unlikely; most archaeological digs are very laborious..."

"Bones, it's a movie," Booth interjected with a smirk, "Besides, _you_ get in a lot of danger for a squint." It was one of the reasons why he thought she might enjoy the movie. Indiana Jones was a squint, but he was adventuresome and he thought that Bones just might be able to relate to it. Clearly he'd been off the mark if she was already picking apart all of the cool special effects.

"With you," Brennan interjected, "I get in danger with you." This seemed to be the perfect entry into a conversation about why she needed to be able to carry a gun while out in the field.

Booth snorted out a laugh and casually slung his arm over Bones' shoulders, "You are a _magnet_ for danger and I don't even need to be there." He realized that maybe that wasn't the wisest way to phrase things and he quickly began to backpedal, "But I usually _am_ there, so there's no need to worry about danger."

Brennan rolled her eyes but couldn't help but smile just a little, "I've saved you a number of times; if I had a gun, I'm sure I could save you more." She most definitely did not need Booth and his alpha-male tendencies to march in like the shining knight beating his drum. Of course she was extremely grateful that he had come through when she had needed him the most, but she was an equal partner in this partnership and she wanted to be able to do the same for him; something she could do much better with a gun.

"Maybe you just need a whip like ole Indy there," Booth gestured towards the screen as the man in question began to use his secret weapon with gusto.

"A whip is completely impractical; while I'm confident that I could master it, a gun would be far more effective," Brennan concluded as she furrowed her brow and put another piece of popcorn in her mouth. If his arm wasn't bad enough, those feet of Booth's were proving to be very distracting; since when had he been comfortable enough to kick his shoes and socks off? She had started out barefoot; it was her apartment after all, but she hadn't noticed when he'd decided to let his feet go free of his signature flashy socks. She found herself staring.

Booth glanced over and noticed that she wasn't looking at the beautiful new plasma screen and so he followed her line of sight. He puckered his face up as he wondered if she was mentally naming each and every bone in his feet, "What are you looking at, Bones? Bones?" He was tempted to let out a chuckle at the funny he'd made and he gave her shoulder a squeeze pulling her temporarily closer as he finally did let out a muffled snort.

"It's interesting really how the feet of a male can be so much larger than that of a female and yet there are exactly the same number of bones in each," She glanced over at him and hoped that the slight burning she felt in her cheeks wasn't causing a rosy hue to rush in and give her away.

Booth wiggled his toes, "They're just feet." He let out another chuckle and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, "Your feet are pretty cute; nice flowers by the way." He wiggled his fingers towards her feet as if he was sprinkling the cuteness on them himself and then squinted, "Daisies." A chortle. "Nice, Bones."

In that moment, Brennan wanted the power to reverse time and decline Angela's offer for a girl's day that had included a manicure and pedicure and some insanely expensive shoes. Under Booth's impromptu inspection she felt suddenly self conscious at the fact that she'd let the woman doing the pedicure go beyond a simple neutral color by embellishing her toenails with daisies. She cleared her throat and blurted out the words before she could find some sort of verbal filter to stop herself, "Booth, this feels awkwardly comfortable."

Booth looked perplexed, "Huh?" His mind was still on the daisies on her toes and he wasn't sure when they had leaped to another topic that required the use of feelings. And if Bones was introducing feelings, then they had to be something she was literally feeling, "Define 'awkwardly comfortable'."

Brennan felt slightly flustered no matter how irrational she knew that it was and she gestured in a circular fashion, "This; you and the television, Indiana Smith, the coffee table and bare feet." She knew she hadn't made an ounce of sense, but she hoped that her partner with his ability to read people and use his gut to save the world, and quite often just her, could figure out what it was she was trying to say.

It occurred to Boot that his brilliant partner had just stumbled onto what he hoped turned out to be the best discovery of her life; a holy grail of sorts as he puffed his chest out just a little bit. Adoring his face was the sort of smile that could melt chocolate into goo at 50 paces and it was all directed at one Dr. Temperance Brennan, "This is just you and I being who we are, that's all."

"When did we become this?" Her question was perfectly honest and as the words left her mouth she realized that she wasn't at all opposed to this apparent destination that up until now had resided safely on the other side of a line that she was sure had somehow been mysteriously erased a long time ago.

Booth's smile softened as he regarded her, "We've been walking this way all along don't you think? With each step we became." Of course if she was finally seeing where they really were, then he was making a bet of a lifetime that it was fairly safe to take another step in the grander scheme of things.

Brennan simply nodded. This was Booth; her partner, her friend, and she had finally realized in a paradoxical way although she was a complete and whole person all by herself and so was Booth, together they made a whole that was so much wholer if that was even possible.

"I'm glad you think so," Booth whispered softly as he leaned in a kissed her. Indiana Jones might have his whip and plenty of excitement, but Booth had something so much better – _his_ Bones.

_**Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to read and review – until our next location then. **_


	16. Anthropology 303

**Anthropology 303**

The squinty-speak was a little too thick for Special Agent Seeley Booth's taste as he impatiently checked his watch from his vantage point in the seat he'd slipped into at the back of the auditorium. Who knew that a lecture on bones found at the base of a volcano on some tropical island in the middle of the Pacific could draw this kind of crowd? In his mind, if you were going to go to all of the trouble of visiting the tropics in the first place, why would you bother looking for bones on purpose? Of course that brought him to what had brought him to this lecture in the first place. Where _was_ Bones?

A rather weathered looking man was currently standing at the podium addressing the crowd as he flicked a laser pointer at the screen behind him, "As you can see the layers created by the lava flows literally froze in time a snapshot of a culture that we know little about. The anthropological implications are enormous."

Booth craned his neck to try and see where his partner was sitting in this sea of squinty humanity. Second row? No, not pretty enough. Ah, third row? No, definitely no. How could a man have hair nearly as nice as Bones? _Think manly thoughts, Seel_. He furrowed his brow and shifted in his chair, momentarily considering whether or not he should just shoot his gun into the air to get everyone's attention. As expedient as that might be, he was sure that he'd be spending even more time with Sweets than he and Bones were now and he certainly didn't want that, not to mention that he didn't ever want to see _Sully Part 2_; the first go around was bad enough. He shifted around in the seat to try and get a little more comfortable which earned him a couple of pointed glances. He simply smoothed down his tie and offered one of his patent-pending smiles in return.

"Particulates trapped in the casing formed when the lava cooled gives us a great deal of important information about the diet of the Pupupulapu people," The leathery man prattled on.

Booth tried to tune him out as he continued to scan the crowd for Bones, and finding that he was getting nowhere, glanced at his watch again. She had said she was going to go to this thing; was she hiding under a seat so that he couldn't find her? All of this squinty-speak was making his brain hurt and he had to stifle a yawn as he realized that he might just have to wait until it was over to find Bones. He furrowed his brow and slouched down just a little bit, glancing up at a slide that Brainiac Man was using to help illustrate his point. The phrases _virginal sacrifice_ and _volcano god_ seemed to slip in through the dense fog that was very quickly surrounding his brain.

He was sure that when he _did_ find Bones that he was going to have to listen to her spout something about the ridiculous nature of volcano theology or something. His priest was certainly going to get an earful at confession this week; he could just feel it. He snorted out a bit of a grunt and then realized that he had been shot by a few glares from the people around him. He narrowed his gaze right back – the best kind of glare he usually saved for suspects and squints that didn't seem to be able to catch a proverbial clue.

"My colleague from the Jeffersonian, Dr. Temperance Brennan will now share her insights on this most thrilling discovery," Leathery-weathery man gestured to the edge of the stage where Brennan seemed to materialize out of thin air, if such a thing were possible.

"Thank you, Dr. Borenstein," Brennan took her place at the podium and as her eyes skimmed over the crowd as she began she happened to spot her partner sitting in the back of the auditorium. There was an amused grin on his face and she hoped that he didn't do anything that would provide a distraction to the rest of the people who were actually here because they wanted to learn something. No doubt he was here because they had a case; a case that could certainly wait until she was finished giving her presentation.

Booth nearly snorted out a laugh as he mentally started a sing-song voice _Dr. Borenstein is boring_. Clearly the man had been given a very appropriate name. Of course Bones was a much better looking replacement for old Doc Boresville and he couldn't help but widen his smile.

"I want to point out a few significant anomalies," Brennan began, using her laser pointer to get the audience to look exactly where she wanted them too doing her best not to make eye contact with Booth; she didn't need _him_ distracting _her_ from the lecture, "The facial structure of this young woman is much different than that of any of the other remains that were recovered. Look here and here, the height of the forehead suggests not Pupupulapu, but neighboring Pintatulapapapulata. It has long been thought that tribes in this region would steal young girls from neighboring islands to use for their virginal sacrifices, rather than sacrifice one of their own. Or another explanation could be the interrelations of tribes that produced offspring that the resident tribe regarded as an anomaly."

Booth had his brow furrowed as he tried to follow what she was saying, but all he could register was poo-poo and virginal sacrifice and Bones. The thought occurred to him that if it had been him back in the day and Bones was supposed to be one of those virginal sacrifices that he would have happily rushed in and resolved that technicality to save her. He mentally smacked himself – this was Bones he was thinking about. He glanced up and that certainly didn't help. Did she have to wear things that just made her curves look curvier and more appealing?

"These anomalies within the tribe itself would have been looked upon as a blemish and therefore, they would have been ideal candidates for sacrifice," She moved to the next image, "You can see here that the hands were bound at the time of death, but we can tell from marks within the cooled lava here and here that she wasn't dead when the volcano erupted and therefore the pre-sacrifice practices were preserved in these remains." She immediately began to wonder what sort of case was waiting for her expertise because she was sure that Booth wouldn't be here unless they needed to go out in the field.

Booth grinned at Bones, she really was super smart; if she were a super hero; she would most certainly have that in her arsenal. And she was super pretty too; could that be considered a super power? If not, it should be. It certainly had power over him. _Smack, get a grip, Seeley. This is your partner and you can't be thinking about her like this_.

"This concludes my portion of the presentation. Thank you," Brennan glanced back at where Booth seemed to be slouching in his seat and made eye contact as she exited the stage, gesturing with her head that she would meet him outside the auditorium.

Booth was relieved that his squinty torture was finally over, but he was a little confused when Bones disappeared backstage. He pulled himself out of his seat, not quietly enough for the people sitting around him, "Sorry, FBI agent, Dr. Brennan's partner, just leaving now." He considered walking right up to the front of the auditorium and right backstage, but he opted to exit the place altogether so that he could catch her when she came out – if she came out that is. He was going to give her three minutes and then he was going to call her cell. In fact he had just pulled it out and punched in her number when she emerged through the doorway, "I was just trying to call you."

Brennan quirked an eyebrow at him, "I told you I would meet you outside."

"You didn't say anything to me, you were talking about virgin sacrifices and volcanoes," Booth realized that she probably had said quite a bit more, but that was where his mind had landed and decided to set up base camp.

Brennan looked at him curiously, "I wouldn't have thought you would have paid attention." Of course the fact that he'd focused on that one small part of the overall presentation made her smile at how typical it was that he'd hone on in on any possible sexual nuance. He was such an alpha male.

"I learn things," Booth stammered in response somehow feeling a little tongue-tied now that he could see her curves all up close and personal with his mind swimming in areas that he should have never jumped into in the first place.

"You _are_ very evolved," He certainly wasn't the Philistine that she'd thought he was when they first started working together; she was sure that Seeley Booth would have interrupted the lecture by flashing his badge. Of course at the moment he seemed to be trying to draw attention to his flashy tie.

Booth puffed his chest out hoping that his tie looked extra flashy today, "That's because we make a great team and your lab stuff is rubbing off on me." He wasn't going to say that her sense about law enforcement had improved because her cop talk still had a lot to be desired.

"Anthropologically speaking, we adapt and change to the situation that we are presented with," Brennan had noticed that he seemed to be making his posture more dominant and as he slung his arm across her shoulder and began to propel her the direction of the parking lot she wondered if today's topic had made an impression on him; if it had given him any appreciation for the other remains she examined as part of her duties at the Jeffersonian or if he was just being a typical male with sex on the mind. If she was honest, she'd have to admit that the latter was on her mind as well.

"Anthropologically speaking? Bones, does everything have to be explained with anthropology?" Booth stopped and turned towards her, his hands taking up residence on his hips in a slightly agitated mood. All he'd been thinking about during her portion of the damn lecture was how curvy she was and how he'd like to shut her up with his lips, but here she went throwing in the one phrase that had the ability to get his ire up faster than anything else.

"I'm an anthropologist, it's what I do," Brennan rolled her eyes slightly and then leaned in as she enunciated very carefully, "Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't apply."

Suddenly Booth wasn't sure what had gotten hold of him and he reached over and pulled her towards him, dipping his head and pressing his lips against hers to shut her up. As soon as coherent thought was able to filter through that she was mostly likely going to kill him, he let go of her and muttered out words he hoped made sense, "Adapt to that, anthropologist."

Brennan was temporarily speechless and when she finally caught her voice and put it to use, the words that came out were not the ones she intended to chastise him with, "Do we have a case or did you just come by because you wanted to kiss me?"

_**Until our next location then. I hope you enjoyed this one.**_


	17. Who Knew A Crime Scene Could Be So Great

**Who Knew A Crime Scene Could Be So Great?**

Seeley Booth gritted his teeth as he maneuvered his FBI-issued SUV through DC traffic; doing his best to not actually look at his partner, "I should just drive back to the Jeffersonian and shoot Hodgins right now." He should have been immediately suspicious when the squint in question had handed him a fresh cup of coffee from Starbucks with a smile on his face. Now he was beginning to think that maybe it hadn't been all that friendly of a gesture. Especially when he considered that Dr. Conspiracy Theorist had voiced a few pointed opinions about the role of the FBI in yet another obscure compound raid.

"Booth, I don't want my remains contaminated. You can just talk to him at the crime scene; he's riding with Cam," Brennan tried to withhold a smirk from spreading across her face, but given Booth's current situation, she was finding that difficult. Surely this was just some sort of male bonding ritual that Booth could appreciate as a gesture of his high position in the hierarchical structure of the social strata. It was only natural that other males that didn't assert themselves as the alpha would feel the need to bring him down to a more common level.

"I'm not interested in _talking_ to him, Bones. Right now, I'm more interested in hurting him," Booth could take a joke with the best of them; in fact he considered himself a world class prank puller at times. However, when the prank was pulled on him he wasn't so thrilled. And this little instance didn't even qualify as a prank in his book. He was on his way to a crime scene dammit; this was not the time to have this kind of problem; a problem that his super-squinty partner had picked up on as soon as his problem started to fully develop. If he'd been able to keep it from her scientifically trained eyes perhaps he would be able to utilize his vast knowledge of Pittsburgh Steelers' stats to his advantage.

"The effect isn't permanent; it should wear off eventually. I'd only worry if it lasts more than four hours," Brennan couldn't hide her amusement. She was sure that he was probably at least somewhat uncomfortable, but he was a man and she reasoned that he was experienced in dealing with things like this without actually having the opportunity to resolve it in the most ideal circumstance.

"I don't have four hours; I need it this to be back to normal by the time I pull up to that crime scene," Booth was trying to think of ways to make Hodgins hurt that wouldn't cause him to lose his job.

"If you had cut back on coffee like I suggested this wouldn't even be an issue," Brennan rationalized. In her mind, Booth _did_ drink quite a bit of coffee and there was a vast array of scientific data that suggested that tea provided more health benefits than coffee did.

"The coffee isn't the problem, Bones. The problem is _the little blue pill_ he spiked it with. Be glad you're not a man," Booth made the mistake of looking over at her for emphasis; as if he needed any help at all getting things up he had to notice just how curvy she seemed today and the way her blouse seemed to emphasize what it was covering up. _Snap the eyes back to the road, Seel._

"Well at least you know that it works; if you find that you have performance issues in the future," Brennan knew that it was perfectly normal for the average man to experience what Booth was going through approximately eleven times a day. Whatever had triggered this for him was obviously distracting him.

"I don't have performance issues," Booth gritted out. _Of_ _course_ she was going to go down this line of conversation when he was having _this_ particular issue; it was enough to tempt him to pull the SUV over to the shoulder of the Beltway and give her a good talking to. Of course that would mean that he'd actually have to look at her and given the current circumstance he was dealing with, he was sure that it would just make things much, much worse. Especially since he really didn't want to talk; the situation in his shorts was making him think of many, many very inappropriate things to do with his partner and talking was definitely _not_ very high on the list.

"Well not now anyway," Brennan couldn't help but let out a tiny chuckle, "What has you so worked up anyway? The little blue pill isn't supposed to work all on it's own you know; you're supposed to have some sort of stimuli to help it along." She had that look of scientific inquiry on her face as if she seriously expected a well thought out logical answer to her question.

Booth felt as if he was momentarily strangling; how could he escape answering this question in any way but perfect honesty? Any other answer and she was going to know he was lying – the evidence was very clear and irrefutable.

"I mean I've heard that men think about sex a great deal and the average man experiences a sexual response to outside stimuli approximately eleven times a day," Brennan couldn't help but look at him as she studied him carefully, "Maybe you should think about high cholesterol from all of the red meat you eat."

"Can you just not bring up sex, Bones," Of all the times she had to fixate on it she had to do it right now when that's all he could think about. Why couldn't she at least have the decency to look more like a scientist instead of a sex kitten?

"I'm not sure why it makes you so uncomfortable, Booth. Sex is a biological imperative; it's nothing to be ashamed of," Brennan countered looking at him with a completely serious expression on her face as they approached the crime scene with an array of other emergency response vehicles.

"It's not sex that I'm ashamed of," Booth gritted his teeth and in one swift move, he pulled the SUV over, killed the ignition and pulled Bones' face towards his and crushed her lips with a kiss. If he couldn't at least get some satisfaction down south, he was going to make all of the people milling around the scene that were surely now staring a reason that made sense as to why he looked really happy to see them.

Brennan was a bit flustered as Booth pulled away a few moments later; she'd had no problem responding to the kiss and as for what it was that had helped to fuel his little problem she was certain now that she was at the very least a contributing factor – something that she made a mental note to explore in much further detail after things had been shipped back to the Jeffersonian. She had half a mind to grab him and kiss him right back until she realized that they were here because there were remains she needed to look at here and she most certainly did not want Cam to get to them first.

Booth was breathing a bit heavily, "I'm not ashamed of sex; but I don't need my junior agent saying hello to the world if you know what I mean."

"I don't know what that means, but I did enjoy kissing you – I wouldn't mind doing that again later. After I see the remains," Brennan was trying to compose herself as she realized that somewhere in the middle of that rather Kathy-and-Andy-book-worthy-kiss her clothing had sort of become askew.

"Nothing like mentioning a dead body to kill the mood, Bones," Booth couldn't help but smile at her; if he hadn't been so focused on the development in his shorts the entire way here, he would have realized that death and decomposition would have been the perfect thing to focus on to counteract Hodgins and his little blue pill.

"Glad I could help," She was sure that later on she'd be more than happy to make the opposite true.

Booth reached for the door handle and quirked an eyebrow at her as he felt his situation gradually abating, "But I still might have to shoot Hodgins."

_**Until the next location – real life sure is a distraction though – editing research publications and getting over a back injury certainly hasn't helped my creative process. But my birthday is in a few days, so I will happily celebrate in spite of it all.**_


	18. Opening Ceremonies

**Opening Ceremonies**

"Booth, I have to finish examining these remains," Brennan didn't even bother to glance up from where she was hunched over a Civil War era skeleton. He was just one of hundreds of soldiers from that time period that still had not been identified and their anthropological significance in history compelled her to continue until she was finished.

"You know at some point, that phrase just sounds like, blah, blah, blah," Booth waved his hand towards Skeletor and struck a superhero pose with his hands on his hips, his suit jacket jutting out in much the same way a cape might. He was here on an important mission and it had nothing to do with the long since dead guy on the table.

Brennan glanced up; she wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or hurt that he would take what she was doing with so little regard, "I don't know what that means." Clearly he wasn't pleased with the fact that she was immersed in something that had nothing to do with a case from the FBI, but that wasn't exactly unusual coming from Booth.

He abandoned his pseudo super hero pose and he took on one the conveyed more friendly concern, "What I'm saying is that although I'm sure that your remains are very important to someone somewhere," He leaned in and realized that these remains looked especially old, "Just how old is this guy anyway?" Booth quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Civil War," Brennan replied as she regarded him warily.

"Ok, so important to someone who is _probably already dead_," Booth rolled his eyes inwardly.

"The anthropological significance is these remains is important to history, not just to the past," Brennan defended.

"Isn't history and the past the same thing?" Booth was confused.

"History, as in the story of man," Brennan felt as if she was trying to explain anthropology to the younger of the Booth men instead of the grown up one standing right in front of her.

Booth huffed out a breath in annoyance, "Look, Bones, you and me have a date with some history of our own." He really didn't mean any disrespect to the man on the table; he was after all probably a soldier that had paid with his life the freedom that Booth enjoyed right this minute to pester a very beautiful forensic anthropologist.

"Do we have a case? If we have a case, you should have just said something," Brennan began consider how long it would take her to secure the remains and get her field kit.

"No, we don't have a case," Booth smirked, "We have something far more important."

"We don't have any court cases, it's Friday night," And right now, this forensic anthropologist wanted to finish her preliminary examination of these remains.

"Yes, it _is_ Friday night, and if you'd look around, you'd notice that everyone else in the lab has already gone home for the night. And do you know _why_ they've all gone home?" Booth felt like he was trying to coach her.

"They probably have plans," Even Temperance Brennan could appreciate that other people made full use of the weekend for social endeavors, but she had planned this particular weekend to catch up on some of the limbo cases and then maybe work on her novel.

"Yes, they do; plans which you of all people should participate in," Booth had to hold back an amused chuckle.

"Why?" Brennan wasn't sure why Booth was so insistent that she should know about something that clearly no one had invited her to.

"It's the opening ceremonies of the _Olympics_, Bones," He waved his hand in a spherical motion as if trying to draw the globe, "If you can't appreciate all of the anthropological significance, then how are the rest of us supposed to?" He was sure that to an anthropologist that all of the cultural display and pomp and circumstance associated with the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics would be like Easter, Christmas and New Years all rolled up into one event.

"I have these remains to finish, Booth," She was firm; she wanted to finish this up and continue on with the plans she had made.

"These remains will be here tomorrow, the opening ceremonies is only on tonight and there will never be another one quite like this," It was true, they were all different and since Rebecca had Parker this weekend he had made it his mission to make sure that Bones joined him whether she wanted to or not. Sometimes you just had to remind the anthropologist that she was human too.

"But the remains," Brennan protested, not too firmly this time.

Booth saw that he was wearing her down and he flashed her one of his patent-pending smiles, "Will be here tomorrow. I upgraded my TV and we're stopping to pick up some Wong Fu's on the way in honor of the Olympics being in China." He began to propel her down the stairway of the platform a fraction of an instant before she pulled her latex gloves off in resignation. It didn't take long to swing by Wong Fu's; Booth had called ahead and asked Sid to put together an Olympic special for him and Bones. He was almost smiling with glee by the time they stepped through the doorway into his house.

"The Chinese have invented many things that we take for granted today – paper, astronomical observatories, decimal mathematics..." Brennan had taken it upon herself to enlighten Booth and help him become a little bit more evolved before these opening ceremonies that he insisted that she watch with him.

"I'm not so sure that anyone is really glad about decimal mathematics, Bones. Just ask most kids in America how much they _love_ math," Booth ducked into his kitchen and retrieved a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses; he was glad at least that she had actually come with him; if he had to listen to all of the things that the Chinese invented then he was happy to if it meant all of those things were coming out of Bones' mouth.

"A lot of what we do would be more difficult if they hadn't invented it," Brennan replied sinking onto his couch and pulling out a carton of something that smelled wonderful. She had learned long ago that whatever Sid gave you was going to be exactly what you wanted even if you weren't sure what that was.

Booth ducked back into the kitchen for a couple of plates; both of them had mastered chopsticks a long time ago so he skipped the cutlery and instead sank down next to her on the couch and traded the plates for the television remote. He had dreamed of a giant plasma screen TV, but he'd had to settle for a much smaller version instead. It was ok; it was much nicer than the TV that it had replaced.

As the images swirled on the TV it was clear that they had sat down just a few minutes before the opening ceremonies were set to start. It occurred to Brennan as Booth poured the wine that no one else seemed to have the ability to get her out of the lab and talk her into things that she was sure that Angela would deem very date-like. This was Booth though and no matter how much she had considered crossing that stupid line of his; she respected him – it was his line to cross, not hers. A smile flickered across her face as she realized that Sid had once again captured the essence of what she'd been hungry for all day.

As Booth stole a glance at his partner under the guise of taking a sip of his wine he couldn't help but smile at the way her eyes began to light up as the ceremony started. And as each element of the ceremony unfolded in all of its grandeur, Booth started to feel a bit enraptured himself; he found himself drifting closer to Bones until he had unapologetically slung his arm across her shoulders after they'd finished up fittingly the last of the Mee Krab together.

It was after midnight when the ceremony finally wrapped up with Chinese Olympic team marching into the stadium last as the host country. Booth, glanced over at Bones again, "So aren't you glad I talked you into this?"

Brennan impulsively leaned up and kissed his cheek, "Yes, I am glad." She didn't turn away as Booth turned to look at her with an expression that she couldn't quite place either. But the pieces seemed to slip together nicely as she realized he was contemplating whether or not he should finally go ahead and cross his line.

Booth felt his heart beating wildly in his chest as he took in how beautiful his partner was. He had thought about kissing her so many times, but somehow this seemed like the perfect moment. A moment he couldn't talk himself out of and one that she seemed she wanted too. And with that, the corners of his mouth pulled up into a soft smile and he dipped his head just a little and pressed his lips against hers.

Brennan was sure she was glad that Booth had pulled her out of the lab as she eagerly returned his kiss; he had been right, they had definitely had a date with a history that was all their own and this was just another very interesting chapter in their story.

_**Until the next location then. My apologies for the delay in posting – real life and a diversion briefly into another fandom derailed me. I hope this makes up for it.**_


	19. A Little Flu A Little Wong Foo's

**A Little Flu – A Little Wong Foo's**

The impatient tap of Angela Montenegro's foot interrupted Brennan's thoughts as she attempted to work on her latest novel. She let out a sigh and glanced up, "What is it, Ang?"

"Where's Booth?" It had not escaped Angela's notice that eye-candy half of the dynamic duo hadn't been by the Jeffersonian in a couple of days and she just wanted to make sure that there was no trouble in the paradise that she was sure that these two would find as soon as they pulled their heads out of their perpetual denial.

"He's home sick with the flu," Brennan answered before turning back to the world of Kathy and Andy. "I'm sure he'll stop by with a new case as soon as he's feeling better," Why Angela was so curious about Booth's absence was a bit of a mystery to her, but she was sure that there was some sort of rational reason for why she needed to see him.

"And you're here," Angela's mouth gaped just a bit at the missed opportunity.

"Where else would I be?" Brennan had that soft tone that clearly conveyed she didn't understand why Angela thought it was odd that she was sitting behind her desk in her office typing on her computer. This was her job after all.

Angela rolled her eyes, "What kind of partner are you?" Clearly she was going to have to play to the denial game that she'd been dealt, "You should be bringing Booth chicken soup." In the back of her mind she added, _or doing a striptease_.

"I'm a good partner and it makes no logical sense for me to expose myself to whatever he's sick with," She didn't get sick and she wasn't about to purposely bring herself into contact with someone who was more than likely contagious.

"And if Booth is sick, who is taking care of him?" Angela jutted her hip out in potential victory.

"He's a grown man, Angela, I'm sure that he's more than capable of taking care of himself," Although it did occur to her that on the one time she'd been sick in the last three years that he'd stopped by with hot and sour soup. Her brow furrowed as she considered whether she ought to reciprocate the gesture.

"Grown men are babies when their sick," Angela smirked.

"I'm not good with babies," It was the first thing that came to Brennan's mind and the fact that she hadn't filtered it through reason and logic first made her realize that Angela was gaining ground.

"You were good with Andy, and you know Booth," Angela took a step closer, "He's probably sitting there feeling sorry for himself. Who better than you to stop by and remind him that crime fighters don't whine – they eat their chicken soup and come back to work?" She mentally added _and wake up and see what's right underneath their nose before she really does sail off into the sunset with some other hunky FBI guy that isn't Booth_.

Brennan let out a sigh; she could see if she didn't go and at least take Booth some soup that Angela was not going to leave her alone and if that happened she was never going to finish her next chapter which her publisher had been asking for the better part of the last two weeks now. She closed her laptop and addressed Angela, "Fine, but if I get sick, it's your fault."

Angela suppressed the desire to squeal at how easily Brennan had given in and her mind whirred into hyper-speed as she considered all of the other things she might just get them to do. For now she simply smiled, "Good, Bren, he'll appreciate that." _Maybe he'll just appreciate her right out of those jeans._

Brennan made a quick stop at Wong Foo's and then she made her way over to Booth's. For a moment she felt a bit out of place standing in his hallway, but then she shook it off and stepped forward and softly knocked. She heard the sound of muffled shuffling inside and she had to repress an amused smirk at a very miserable looking Seeley Booth.

"Bones," Booth let out a cough followed by a sniffle, he'd been feeling pretty crappy, but the sight of his partner and the smell of what he hoped was Wong Foo's seemed to boost his spirits; something that the random game on ESPN wasn't doing for him.

"Angela said that I should bring you soup; apparently it's supposed to make you feel better so we can get back to fighting crime," Brennan wasn't sure how else to explain why she was there in the middle of the day when normally she would be working on a case from Limbo, or her book – the book that she really needed to get back to as soon as she had spent whatever socially acceptable amount of time you were supposed to associate with food delivery. When Booth brought her food he always seemed to stay a considerable amount of time. Of course she wasn't sick those times, except the one time when he'd brought her hot and sour soup.

"She did, huh?" Booth inwardly chuckled, Angela was clearly trying one of those maneuvers that they'd both become so adept at dodging; only this time, Bones seemed to have missed the implication.

"You look terrible," Brennan noted that his nose was reddish and he had a look in his eyes that made him look tired.

"Thanks, Bones, you really know how to make a sick guy feel better," He hoped that the bags held Wong Foo's and not some freakish veggie concoction and he was beginning to wonder if he really was up to seeing Bones right this second.

She offered a tentative smile, "I brought Wong Foo's," she hoped that the promise of good food might help, although if he'd been feeling nauseated food was probably the last thing on his mind.

Booth seemed to perk up just a bit, "Thanks, Bones."

"I was going to just get you hot and sour soup, but Sid seemed to think that you needed something a bit more substantial and I wasn't going to argue with Sid," Brennan had learned a long time ago that Sid always had a knack for picking exactly what you needed.

As Booth took the bags from her and set them on the coffee table and sank into the couch to see what wonderful tasting food she'd brought he glanced over at where she was still standing, "There's more than plenty for two here, Bones."

She was about to mutter out something about needing to head back and work on her novel, but then she reconsidered – clearly Sid thought she needed something too and who was she to refuse Sid? "Ok, but I'm only staying for a few minutes; I have work to do."

Booth grinned at her and handed her a carton of food, "Thanks for coming, Bones, I appreciate it." He leaned over intending to kiss her cheek in a friendly gesture.

"That's what Angela said..." Brennan was going to expand on it a little more, but she chose that moment to turn her head and found that she was suddenly kissing Booth in an accidental collision of lips that seemed exactly perfect; the same kind of perfect usually reserved for Sid's selection of food.

_**Until the next location then...**_


	20. Rain Rain Go Away

**Author's Note:** This particular chapter is dedicated to **mumrulz** and **ForAReason** simply because.

**Rain, Rain Go Away**

"It looks like August got amnesia and thinks she's October," Angela Montenegro looked put out that the weather was masquerading the true season, which, unless _she_ had suddenly gotten amnesia, was still summer. Not that you could tell with all that wind and rain and cold out there; she was sure that some tropical storm was to blame – despite the fact that there was nothing tropical about their weather at the moment at all.

"I don't know what that means," Brennan glanced up from where she was meticulously examining the remains of a Civil War era soldier. She was particularly fascinated by the obvious deformities of the man's sacrum which should have made it difficult to do much labor.

"It means that I'm wondering what happened to summer," Angela was waiting for her computer to finish rendering an image and so she was impatiently tapping her toe as she watched Bren work.

"It's still summer," Brennan shook her head in amusement – the calendar clearly indicated that it was August, and August was clearly part of the summer season – well unless you were in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case it would actually be winter, but these were basic concepts that most school children learned very early and she wasn't sure why Angela was confused about the issue.

Angela rolled her eyes and in the next blink noticed Agent Hot Stuff striding purposefully in their direction, barely stopping to swipe his card before launching himself up the steps to the platform. She inwardly smiled as she prepared to catalogue the exchange she was sure was coming.

"Bones, we've got a case," Booth nodded at Angela briefly and then turned his attention back to his partner who didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave the bones that were laid out in front of her.

"I've got a case right here," Brennan wasn't quite ready to stop and at the moment she was a little annoyed at the intrusion into this very interesting case. She still hadn't quite determined out how this man who had quite obviously done some heavy manual labor had managed to do so with such a crippling deformity that was clearly not the result of injury.

Booth wasn't really in the mood for a fight just then and so instead he glanced over at Angela, "How old are these remains she's working on?"

Brennan glanced up and shot him a glare.

"Civil War," Angela remarked with a smirk. How her friend resisted her partner was one of the biggest mysteries of the century as far as she was concerned.

"My case trumps your case, Bones," Booth was in a hurry to get to the crime scene because right this minute there was actually a break in the weather – they just might be able to finish up before another rain squall blew in and he ended up getting soaking wet through his standard issue, but not so waterproof FBI windbreaker.

"If you mean trump as in which one got in first, then my case trumps yours," Brennan remarked as both Booth and Angela looked a little surprised that she had picked up on the phrase.

"Bones, we have a _crime scene_," Booth really didn't have time to argue and so he pulled out the one trump card that he was sure would get her to leave Skinny behind on the table, "Do you want Cam to beat you there?" His eyebrow was raised at a sharp angle as a smirk adorned his face.

Brennan's eyes widened, "I don't want her compromising my remains." Not that Dr. Saroyan hadn't gained an appreciation for the collection of bone evidence, but she was still a novice a knowing when she was or wasn't compromising bone evidence since her interest was primarily in the fleshy parts of victims.

"Well, then hurry up – there's another rain front moving in and I for one don't want to get soaked. Sheesh, you'd think we went into warp speed and landed right into October or something," Booth muttered under his breath.

"Whether the current weather agrees or not, it _is_ still summer; it's impossible to travel through time from August directly to October. Time simply doesn't get amnesia," This last comment was directed at Angela since Brennan had finally understood what her friend had been implying; at least she thought she did.

"Amnesia, what? Are you feeling ok, Bones?" Booth was propelling her along to gather her kit and probably those gum boots of hers that she loved so much. The sooner they got to the scene, the sooner they were out of the weather, and the sooner they could put the bad guys in jail. All in all, that sounded like a pretty good day to Special Agent Seeley Booth.

"I'm fine, Angela was just commenting that she thought August had amnesia, when it's impossible for a month to have amnesia," Brennan shrugged out of her lab coat and hung it up in her office before grabbing her field kit, a pair of coveralls and her gum boots.

"It's just an expression, Bones," He inwardly rolled his eyes and propelled her towards the doorway – he just had a gut feeling that she was going to make this difficult somehow and if he ever hoped that his gut let him down, it was now.

"So what's the scene," Brennan easily shifted gears as she wanted to prepare herself for what they were supposed to be investigating.

"Bones, there are bones there, so that's why I came to get you," Booth sounded amused at his backhanded attempt at cracking a joke.

"That's not very funny," Of course she had used a very similar joke on him not all that long ago and so while it was originally funny, it was no longer original and therefore not quite as funny; even if Booth had done a decent job of delivering it.

* * *

Cam beat them to the scene and she was standing next to the body with her arms crossed as Booth and Brennan approached, having hiked a considerable distance up a very long and winding path in Rock Creek Park.

Brennan looked at her curiously, "Did you touch the body?" She was of course well within her rights to do so, but Brennan could see even from this angle that there was going to be some very good bone evidence to examine and so she hoped that Cam had somehow refrained.

"Just my eyes; I was waiting for you," Cam offered a matter of fact smile, "Even I could see that this one needed your eyes before transporting it back to the Jeffersonian." Even though she was Dr. Brennan's boss, she had the ultimate respect for the woman in spite of their rocky start and her somewhat abrasive communication style.

Brennan nodded as she did a cursory examination; she didn't want to admit it out loud, but this was definitely looking as if it was going to be far more interesting that her Civil War era soldier with the deformed sacrum. She went methodically about her business, giving instructions to members of the FBI forensics team who were to bring the remains and at least three inches of the soil underneath it back to the Jeffersonian. All Booth had to do was raise an eyebrow to make it so. Somewhere in the midst of it, Cam had slipped out and headed back to the Jeffersonian after she'd done what she could; everything else would have to wait until it was all back at the lab.

Several hours had elapsed by the time Booth was trying to herd Bones back down the path towards his SUV. Rain had started falling and he wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect of getting stuck in a downpour in the middle of Rock Creek Park. Although in the back of his mind he conceded that if he was going to that having Bones along for soaking wet company was at least something.

"I'm sure that there is more evidence we should be gathering," Brennan was still protesting despite the FBI forensics team working furiously to get as much as they could before the sky opened up and dumped every ounce of rain it had.

"Bones, all the evidence you need is already on the way back to the Jeffersonian, which is where you and I are going; back where it's warm and dry," Seeley Booth wasn't a wimp by anyone's standards and certainly not his own either, but he wasn't stupid either. Why stand out in inclement weather if you didn't have to?

Brennan was about to protest again as the sky opened up and let loose its torrents. She bit back a smirk and started marching purposefully down the path towards the SUV. Rivulets of water running down her face and neck seemed to multiply with every step she took and even the gum boots that she'd so purposefully brought along weren't providing much protection against the elements at all. In fact the opposite was true; the gum boots were very quickly becoming an efficient rain collection device the wetter her clothes got.

Booth muttered under his breath as he followed his very wet and persnickety partner down the trail. If he hadn't been so annoyed by the fact that she hadn't wanted to leave ten minutes ago he would have paid more attention to the sway of her hips or the way her ponytail thwacked back and forth like a wet mop. With every step he got wetter and wetter and he was sure that if he wrung out all of his clothes he could probably fill several 5-gallon buckets up with the proceeds. Booth was more than ready to give her a piece of his mind as they reached the SUV until he noticed that with every step her boots were letting out a wet squeaking sound and he snorted out a laugh before he could stop it.

Brennan glanced up and when she noticed that his hair was plastered to his head and that he looked like he'd been shrink-wrapped in his clothes she let out a snort of her own.

"You looked like a drowned rat, Bones," Booth snorted out as he unlocked the vehicle.

"I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound very pleasant," She leaned against the seat while the rain continued to pour down and began to wrestle off her left boot.

"You want some help there, Bones?" Booth knew that he should probably just get in the SUV and wait until she was finished with whatever she was doing if he knew what was good for him, but the day had been stressful and this whole situation was funny as all get out.

"I'm fine," Brennan grunted out as she pulled the boot off and then turned it over to let the water out. She glanced up at Booth and as she caught his smile, she couldn't help but laugh again.

"You're wet," Stating the obvious seemed like the best thing to do to convince his partner to climb up into the passenger seat and let him help her get the other boot off.

"So are you," Brennan was grinning now as she let Booth pull the other boot off and then hold it up for dramatic effect as he poured the water out

"It's a good thing you weren't wearing hip waders," Booth snorted out as the last of the water dripped out before he tossed it with its mate into the backseat.. Despite the fact that the rain was still falling in a torrential downpour he stood there grinning at her, admiring the way her hair was sticking to her face.

Somehow the idea of hip waders caused Brennan to start giggling, "You too." She reached out intending to poke him in the chest for emphasis, but he intercepted her hand and suddenly everything seemed to change. The electricity between them in that simple touch seemed to crackle dangerously in the air and with the rain offering a curtain between them and the rest of the world, that stupid line seemed to wash away in the torrents.

In the next instant Booth found himself threading his fingers into her wet hair as his lips pressed against hers. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was preparing himself for her to inflict him with bodily harm, but it didn't come. Instead she seemed to return the kiss with gusto and once that little fact registered in his waterlogged brain the rain didn't seem to matter any more. He was kissing Bones; she was kissing him and nothing else seemed to really matter – not rain, not lines, not anything. Although in the back of his mind the though occurred to him that he was never going to be able to look at those gum boots of hers in quite the same way ever again and that made him very happy.

**_Until the next location then..._**


	21. Jealousy, Thy Name Is Booth

**Jealousy, Thy Name is Booth**

"Hey, Booth, you hear that Sully's coming back?" Agent Charlie Madison had one of those oblivious expressions on his face as he poked his head into Booth's office to give him the latest inside scoop.

"No, I hadn't heard that." He wasn't sure why he was so surprised, it wasn't like Sully wasn't a fully capable FBI agent; albeit a supposedly retired one who was supposed to be sailing around the Caribbean with his broken heart for company in the sailboat he'd named after Bones.

"Yeah, day after tomorrow – looks like his Caribbean adventure was a bust," Charlie let out a laugh that was more envy filled than mirthful; clearly the pudgy agent with four kids who were nearly college-bound wasn't going to have the Caribbean as part of his reality anytime soon.

"Is that so?" Booth had actually hoped that Sully would find that the Caribbean was his dream come true; that he would just keep on sailing away into the sunset and not complicate his life. Not that he regarded Sully as a bad guy – the guy was about as good as they came, except for one thing – Bones. If Sully was back, that meant one thing as far as Booth was concerned and he didn't like it one little bit.

"Yeah, I guess he's coming back to see if Cullen will give him his job back," Charlie laughed again, not really picking up on the mood that had begun to settle in on Booth. "Me and a couple of the guys are gonna take him out for drinks and get the skinny on what went wrong in the tropics – you in?" He looked at Booth expectantly.

The last thing that Booth wanted to do was go out with the guys and listen to Sully cry in his beer about how the Caribbean was worthless because Bones hadn't gone with him. Booth furrowed his brow and cleared his throat, not bothering to answer Charlie's question, "Hey, I've got a meeting I've got to get to." He didn't bother to wait for Charlie to pin him down on whether he was going to go out with the guys, Booth had places to be and people to see; well one person actually.

"So I'll put you down as a 'yes' then," Charlie just shook his head as Booth breezed out of his office with a stack of files in hand and headed towards the elevator.

Booth didn't really have a reason to head over the Jeffersonian other than needing Bones to sign a half a dozen forms that weren't really pressing. He had wanted to get away from Charlie and he most certainly didn't want to hear any more about Sully. Now he just had to find a way to get Bones to sign these forms and find out if she knew that Sully was coming back without actually having to bring it up. Not that he was sure how he was going to do that, but he was after all an FBI _Special_ Agent and he hadn't gotten that rank without being good about pulling information out of people without them knowing about it. Of course this _was_ Bones he was talking about; she was going to be a little more challenging. He strode into the Medico-Legal Lab with a big of a swagger.

Angela Montenegro immediately honed in on his demeanor and couldn't help but comment under her breath as Booth headed towards where Bren was standing up on the platform, "Someone looks a little _too_ happy." In her experience it meant one of two things – either Booth had just landed a new girlfriend, which given the slightly nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth she highly doubted, or he had just found out that Sully was coming back to DC. Given what her instincts told her, she decided she was going to need a front row seat for this one and so she casually followed.

Booth swiped his card and took the steps to the platform two at a time, "Hey, Bones, I've got some paperwork for you to sign." He could tell that she was working on another one of those cases from Limbo given the way that she didn't even bother glancing up at him as she hunched over a bone shard, that with a tilt of his head and a bit of a squint he determined that she was trying to figure out which other piece of bone fragment it was supposed to belong to.

"You can put it on my desk," Brennan wondered if the paperwork was the only reason that Booth had stopped by; at the moment she was rather enjoying the examination of a set of remains that she was trying to determine if they were from the Revolutionary era as the team that found them claimed or if they were possibly from the War of 1812 or the Civil War. She was sure she was going to have to examine them more closely underneath a high powered microscope to tell. And not for the first time and with a pang she realized probably not for the last time, she missed that Zach wasn't here to help her.

"No can do," A cocky grin adorned Booth's face. He needed Bones' one hundred-percent undivided attention if he was going to be able to determine if she knew if Sully was on his way back to DC and whether or not she thought that was a good thing.

Brennan glanced up and turned her head just slightly so she could see Booth, "You said you just needed me to sign something. Do we have a case or are you just bored?"

"This is important FBI business, Bones," It _was_ important, but he was bluffing, the signatures could have waited until later and he most certainly could have left them on her desk as she had asked.

Brennan snuffed out a little breath through her nose and straightened up to face the alpha-male that Booth was exuding and as she noticed the nervous expression on his face it occurred to her that a recent tidbit of information must have made its way through the halls at the J. Edgar Hoover building. She crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly, her ponytail bobbing back and forth at the movement, "Sully's coming back."

"I heard," At the mention of Tim Sullivan's nickname and all that it represented to him and how it made him feel, something rose up in Booth that he was incapable of squelching just then. He stepped forward and let out a bit of a growl as he reached out and effectively grabbed Bones and pulled her towards him and in the next instant, he was kissing her for all he was worth as the files scattered all over the floor. It took him nearly a full minute to realize that she was kissing him back just as eagerly.

When Booth finally let her go, Brennan just stood there staring at him trying to catch her breath. It occurred to her as they just looked at each other blinking that she had just started sharing a little bit of information with him. She started talking again, "Sully's getting married."

Booth tried to process those last three words, "He's what?" By her saying that _Sully_ was getting married, surely that didn't mean that she was going to marry Sully – Bones didn't believe in marriage and she hadn't seen Sully since he'd left, that only left the option that perhaps Sully had met someone _else_ off in the sunset who _wasn't_ Bones.

"He's getting married, he met some British woman named Clara in the British Virgin Islands and they're getting married," Brennan had finally caught her breath now and she was doing her best to try and read Booth's expression.

Booth was clearly wearing his heart on his sleeve at this point, "So he's not coming here to win you back." He knew he shouldn't have said it like that; Bones wasn't a woman that you won – she was a woman that you'd be lucky enough to have her choose you.

There was a flash in Brennan's eyes as she realized that what Booth's expression was had jealousy and fear and something towards her that she hadn't really been sure of before. Now though, it was unmistakably clear, "You're jealous."

Booth was going to deny it and then out of the corner of his eye he could see Angela who had witnessed the entire display. Swallowing hard, he looked back at Bones, "I'm not jealous I just wanted to clear up a few things, that's all."

"You _are_ jealous," Brennan had a delighted smirk on her face and a hint of mischief dancing in her eyes as she took a step towards Booth, "Let's just get that clear right now."

Booth seemed to melt under the strong confident unwavering gaze she locked onto him with, "I was just worried that he was going to come back and mess everything up again." There he'd said it – it wasn't a declaration of love or anything else too terribly impulsive, well no more impulsive than grabbing his partner and kissing her in front of all of her coworkers because her ex was coming back into town and he was afraid she'd fall for him again.

"I'm happy that I didn't go with Sully, is that clear?" Brennan felt her smirk turning into more of a smile.

"Yes, that's clear," Booth didn't dare move; she could still give him a good roundhouse kick for kissing her. In fact he wasn't sure why she hadn't at least slapped him by now for being the alpha-male that she always claimed that he was. This time there was no denying it.

"I'm glad," And in a very un-Brennan-like move, she grabbed Booth's tie and pulled him towards her to properly settle the matter with a kiss of her own; just so they were perfectly clear.

And as Booth and Brennan continued to stand there on the platform between the stainless steel exam tables kissing, Angela just stood there with her mouth hanging open, a silent squeal rendering her speechless.

_**Well I plan to wrap this up before the new season starts in a little over a week, so I hope to have one maybe two more up before then...until the next location then. **_


	22. 35,000 Feet

**35,000 Feet**

This was going to be the longest flight in recorded history; Seeley Booth was one hundred percent convinced of that fact. No matter that the flight was officially only supposed to last seven hours; nonstop from Dulles to Heathrow. Those seven hours, seven hours on a red-eye that he was supposed to somehow be able to sleep on, felt like an absolute eternity. The suspension of the space time continuum could be blamed solely on the woman seated next to him that had fallen asleep almost as soon as the flight was cleared for takeoff. And if it wasn't bad enough that she was sound asleep, she had to lean her head on his shoulder. How could Bones not know what she did to him?

The flight attendant passed by and offered a knowing smile, "Your wife seems to be doing better than you are." She'd seen it all before; one half of a couple could fall asleep anywhere but the other could do nothing but fidget.

Booth knew he should have clarified that they weren't married, weren't even dating – he would have too if Bones had been awake, but instead he let it slide. To explain what they _were_ was more complicated than letting someone just make their own assumptions. He smiled at the flight attendant in return, "She's a forensic anthropologist and she tends to burn the midnight oil just a little too much at times." Of course he left out the part about how he was usually right there with her.

The flight attendant tilted her head just so as if she recognized the woman sleeping against the shoulder of the man in 2B, "Is she?" She mouthed _Temperance Brennan_; she didn't want to articulate it in case she was wrong, and then there was the whole thing about remaining perfectly professional.

"Yes, she is," Booth offered knowing full well that Bones would be even more pleased if someone recognized her for her work as a scientist.

"I recognized her from the jacket of the book I've been reading," The flight attendant knew that she shouldn't linger, but most of the other first class passengers were already sleeping on this trans-Atlantic flight.

"She'd probably be disappointed that you didn't recognize her from Forensics Monthly," Booth quipped casting a glance in the direction of Bones who shifted in her sleep, her hand coming to rest on his thigh. He inwardly groaned; even in her sleep Bones could be infuriatingly clueless about what she did to him, what he wished he could do to her.

It seemed as if an internal light bulb had gone off inside the flight attendant's head, "So, are _you_ the inspiration for Andy Lister?" He looked the type to be sure, and she could definitely imagine him as the strong authoritative type – she wondered to herself if he worked for the FBI too.

"Yes, I am," Booth grinned, without Bones to deny it, he felt free to just waltz right into territory that he otherwise would have been chastised for even suggesting, "Special Agent Seeley Booth." He offered a handshake to the flight attendant.

"Oh, so you're her _real_ life partner _too_," The flight attendant was finding this little tidbit of information very interesting indeed; too bad none of her coworkers were even in the same league as Agent Booth here. "I'm Michelle, just let me know if there's _anything_ you need during the flight."

"Thank you," Booth was glad when the woman moved on to check on another passenger. He squirmed slightly in his seat; at least it was first class – he was sure he would have been miserable in coach and he made a mental note to thank Bones for using her frequent flier miles to upgrade both of them. The mumble at his shoulder startled him.

"You let her think that we were married," A sleepy sigh and another snuggle, her hand giving his thigh a bit of a squeeze, "And you are _not_ the inspiration for Andy Lister and you know it."

Booth wasn't sure what to say and so he let out a low chuckle, "You didn't correct me either." That was something he was going to definitely take note of. Well that and the fact that she didn't seem to have any problem at all about snuggling with him at 35,000 feet under the guise of being asleep. Not that he was complaining, well not that much anyway. It was just the effect she had on him that he was complaining about – and now he wasn't so sure that she was as oblivious as he'd assumed.

"Well if she thought you were available, I would have had to listen to you flirting with her all the way to London and I wouldn't have gotten any sleep at all," It was perfectly logical to her that Booth was born to flirt and the average flight attendant was above average in looks, so it was logical that he would have found a reason to flirt with her.

"What makes you think I would have flirted with her all the way to London?" Booth hoped he didn't sound too defensive; he was a guy and after all, it was perfectly natural for men to flirt with women – he wasn't blind after all. But the detail she seemed to miss was that he'd prefer to flirt with her over any other woman on the planet.

"I know you," It was true; she knew Booth very well and in her sleepy state she realized that she had cuddled herself up against him and he'd made no protest at all. This went far beyond a guy hug and she felt a faint smile tugging at her lips. She might be tired, but reason and logic were doing her no favors because they were telling her that if Booth was actually interested in flirting with the woman he would have made it perfectly clear what his relationship with her was. Somehow a red-eye at 35,000 had let his defenses down and hers too it seemed.

Booth shifted in his seat again and reached for the blanket that was tucked in next to him, "And here I thought you were going to sleep all the way there." At least one of them would have arrived fresh as a daisy. He spread the blanket out over her, tucking it around her and doing nothing at all to move her away from using him as her pillow.

"I don't sleep well on planes," Brennan smiled at the gesture of Booth pulling her closer; this was definitely not partner-like behavior and for once she didn't really mind that she knew that it went far beyond that. If she was being honest with herself things had been moving this direction for a long time despite all of the denial both she and Booth had been spouting for years.

"Me either," Booth couldn't resist as he kissed the top of her head in an affectionate gesture. If she wasn't going to protest that he let the flight attendant believe that they were married, well then he was going to push the envelope a little bit. Maybe just maybe all those things he wanted to do to her were just around the corner; he was after all being curled up against by one Temperance Brennan.

"Did you just kiss my head?" Brennan lifted her head off of his shoulder and leaned back just a little so she could see his face in the dim light of the first class cabin.

Clearly she knew that he had and right now he wasn't going to deny it; much anyway, "What if I did?" Booth had one of those looks that held a challenge – a challenge for her to take the next step; a step to either slap him or maybe something else entirely.

Brennan looked as if she was considering something; her brain processing at hyper speed, "I suppose that's ok." She blinked a few times and then decided to take a risk of her own and leaned up and pressed her lips against his.

Booth mumbled against her lips, "That's more than ok." Somehow that eternity of a seven-hour flight he was facing before didn't seem so long anymore. And as he and Bones broke of the kiss and he rearranged the blanket to tuck her in a little closer, he was sure he was going to enjoy the rest of the flight even if he stayed awake all the way to London.

_**This may be it, but I will try to get one more in before Season 4 starts next week.**_


End file.
